The Flip Side
by Irony-chan
Summary: An evil youkai traps Kagome, Inuyasha, and their friends in an alternate reality where they are all rendered powerless. Will they have to spend the rest of their lives in a - gasp - high school AU?
1. Chapter One

And to think, Kagome observed with a sigh, it had started out as such a _nice_ day.  
  
The morning had dawned clear and sunny, with spring birds chirping brightly in the budding trees and a warm breeze quickly melting the thin frost. Almost all of the snow was gone, the grass was turning green, and the first flowers were starting to show their petals. Such promising weather made it almost impossible not to be in good spirits, and indeed, everybody had been quite upbeat when they'd set off after breakfast. Even Inuyasha seemed, if not exactly chipper, then at least less grumpy than usual.  
  
Unfortunately, a lot can happen between morning and noon. It was now almost lunchtime, and storm clouds were building up over both the horizon and everybody's temper. Sango and Miroku had argued over something during a rest stop and were no longer speaking to each other. Kagome hadn't even bothered to ask what the problem had been this time... which may have been why her attempt to talk them into making it up had accomplished nothing. And Inuyasha was... well, he was being Inuyasha.  
  
"This is ridiculous," he snarled, coming to a stop in the middle of the road. "We are going in circles through these stupid woods."  
  
"Don't be silly, Inuyasha," said Kagome, as mildly as she could. She knew very well that if she let herself become angry, it would only make everybody else worse. "Of course we're not."  
  
"If we were going in circles," Miroku pointed out, "we would have been past this spot already, and we haven't been."  
  
"How can you tell?" the hanyou snarled. "All these trees look the same, and we might as _well_ be going in circles for all the progress we're making." Having had the last word, he turned to Kagome. "Where exactly is this shard we're following?"  
  
Kagome squirmed. The whereabouts of the shard were actually starting to worry her, as well. She'd first sensed it yesterday, and they'd been looking for it ever since... but somehow, although they were constantly _approaching_ it, they weren't actually _getting_ there. "That way," she said, pointing up ahead. "It's still in that direction. That's all I know."  
  
The entire party had stopped walking by now. Shippou sat down on a rock in the road and heaved a big, theatrical sigh. "Kagome, I'm hungry," he said.  
  
Sango frowned, reaching up absently to scratch Kirala's ears as she thought for a moment. "If we're not getting any closer..."  
  
"We _are_ getting closer," Kagome insisted. "The shard's not moving. It's as if..." she bit her lip, trying to find the right words to describe the impression she was getting. "It's not running away. It's trying to hide, I think."  
  
"That doesn't mean," Miroku began, "somebody might not be using it to lure..." he stopped in the middle of his sentence and looked back over his shoulder. Kagome cocked her neck to follow his gaze, but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. Just the road and the trees, with some patches of leftover snow in the shaded spots.  
  
"Miroku?" asked Kagome. "Do you sense something?"  
  
The monk hesitated a moment, then shook his head. "Just my imagination," he told them. "But all the same, I think we ought to keep moving."  
  
"Good idea," Kagome agreed, trying to sound cheerful. "Wherever that shard is, we'll never catch up with it if we just stand here. Let's go, everybody!"  
  
"I'm still hungry," Shippou complained.  
  
"We'll have something to eat as soon as we find a place to stop," Kagome promised him. "I brought chocolate-covered jellies. Strawberry are your favourite kind, right?"  
  
"Did you bring ramen?" Inuyasha asked hopefully.  
  
None of them noticed the youkai, sitting quietly in the shadow of a pine tree.

* * *

In all honesty, Meimou didn't pay much more attention to the party passing by than they had to her. She knew where they were and where they were going, and although they were starting to become suspicious it seemed that, at least for now, they would keep on heading in the same direction. That was good. As long as she could keep track of them, she had the leisure to search for something.  
  
She was playing with a small lacquer box that hung from her _obi_ on a black silk cord. A physician would have identified it as an _inro_, a container for herbs and drugs... but if anybody had tried to put such things into this box, they probably would never have gotten them out again. Meimou's _inro_ was not for carrying medicines. It held entire universes.  
  
Right now, she was rummaging inside it like a doctor looking for a particular pill. Scenes from a dozen possible realities flashed by before her eyes as she searched for just one universe. Just the _right_ universe to do the job she had in mind.

* * *

"That does it," announced Kerry, unfolding her laptop as she sat down heavily on one of the cafeteria's creaky old chairs. "I absolutely quit."  
  
Jessie looked up from her macaroni and cheese and gave her friend an odd look. "Quit what?"  
  
"The Four Souls Archive," replied Kerry, who was better known in the online fandom community as BouncyKitty. "I quit! I will not host these on my web space... I refuse to even _read_ these disgraces to fanfiction. Look at this." She double-clicked on something and then turned the screen around for Jessie to look. "This was submitted this morning," she said. "Just look."  
  
Jessie, who went by LuvTheFluffy, leaned closer to look at the screen. "_The Girl at the Rock Show_, by Inu-Miko," she read aloud. "_Sesshoumaru is a famous rock singer, who's tired of his younger brother living off his hard work. What will Inuyasha do when Sess makes him go to school like a normal kid? And what will happen when he meets a shy, nerdy girl named Kagome... who just happens to be his brother's biggest fan?_" Her eyes widened. "Wow. Even the _summary_ is out of character."  
  
"And that's not even the worst of it." Kerry scrolled down. "Check this one out... it's from yesterday."  
  
"I'm afraid to," said Jessie. "_The Pervert and the Princess_, by GCPwnzU042. _Miroku is the lecherous captain of the basketball team, who brags that he can get into bed with any girl in school... but he'll be in for a challenge when his friends bet him that he can't seduce Sango, the richest, prettiest – and most prudish – girl around!_" Jessie thought for a moment. "Wasn't that the plot of some movie a few years back?"  
  
"I think so." Kerry rolled her eyes. "Don't ask me which one, they're all exactly alike. Ohhh, and look at this..."  
  
"Wait," interrupted Jessie. "Are these _all_ high school AU's?"  
  
"Most of 'em," said Kerry. "Although there's a _Harry Potter_ crossover in here somewhere. Oh, and one with _A Knight's Tale_. Wanna see Inuyasha go jousting?"  
  
Jessie shuddered. "No."  
  
"Here, dig this one." Kerry highlighted another summary. "I don't know why the author even bothers calling it _Inuyasha_ fanfiction."  
  
By now, Jessie had seen more than enough, but she found her eyes inexorably drawn to the screen. It was like a train wreck, she thought, or that 'badger, badger, badger' animation: no matter how badly she might want to, it was impossible to look away. "_Wrong Side of the Tracks_, by MaDiSoN. _After Kouga runs away from his abusive father, he drops out of school and it looks like his life is headed nowhere fast. But things start to look up when he meets a girl who makes him think there might be something worth living for after all. Kouga/Nazuna._" She paused a moment to let that sink in. "Nazuna?"  
  
"The girl from the spider episode," Kerry confirmed.  
  
Jessie considered it. "Kouga/Nazuna. That _could_ work..."  
  
"Yeah. Except," Kerry held up a finger, "that judging from the illustrations the author wants me to put up with it, this is Hot Topic-Nazuna. And she always seems to be carrying a guitar."  
  
If it hadn't been for the plate of macaroni and cheese in the way, Jessie would have let her head drop onto the table. "Do you want to know what's really scary?" she asked. "Remember in chat a while back, what Grobanite81 said about possible universes?"  
  
Kerry thought about it. "That was when it was three AM where she is and she was going on about quantum, right?"  
  
"Yeah," said Jessie. "We were talking about that fic where the writer typed out pretty much the exact text of this romance novel and just changed all the names, remember? And Grobie said that if there are infinite universes, then there's one where Inuyasha really _is_ a bodice-ripper romance. And there's one in which it happens at Hogwarts, and one in which Sesshoumaru is a rock star..."  
  
"I really don't want to think about that," groaned Kerry.  
  
"So if you subscribe to her theory, then somewhere out there is an alternate universe in which the characters go to high school together, and all these stupid Jennifer Love Hewitt movie plots are all happening," Jessie concluded.  
  
Kerry snorted. "What happened to Jennifer Love Hewitt anyway?"  
  
"I have no idea," said Jessie.

* * *

In another universe, Meimou smiled.


	2. Chapter Two

The first few drops of rain appeared as darker spots in the reddish dust of the road. Lightning flashed somewhere off in the distance, followed by a faint rumble of thunder. Kirala gave a squeak of feline distress and dived down the back of Sango's kimono... and only seconds later, the heavens opened and rain came _pouring_ down in big, cold, stinging drops.  
  
"Aw, shit," said Inuyasha, but he sounded more resigned than angry.  
  
"Well," Kagome offered, "at least this will wash away the last of the snow, right?"  
  
Nobody answered her.  
  
'Resigned' might have been the best way to sum up the feelings of the entire group. This day had been getting steadily worse since the morning, and the icy, soaking rain seemed like the next logical extension of the general misery. There was absolutely nothing to be done except keep trudging on and hope they'd find some shelter.  
  
None seemed to be forthcoming. The road went on and on through the woods, while the rain came straight down through branches still bare of any leaves that might have stopped it. In the constant gray of the weather it was difficult to tell how much time was passing, but everybody was thoroughly soaked and shivering when Inuyasha suddenly stopped and began sniffing the air.  
  
"What is it?" Kagome asked him.  
  
"Smoke," he replied, turning in a circle. She waited patiently – he never admitted it outright, but she had learned from his past behavior that smells were difficult to work out when it was raining. "Somebody's got a fire going, not too far from here."  
  
"A fire?" Shippou asked excitedly, hugging his own shoulders as he shivered. "Where?"  
  
"Up ahead, I think," said Inuyasha. "Smells like cooking something."  
  
There wasn't much he could have said that would have had a better effect on overall morale. The group's improved enthusiasm was palpable in the damp air as they splashed up the muddy road, which twisted and turned, then led up a hill and forked in two – the right half continued on into the woods, while the left took them up to the gate of a half-ruined castle.  
  
They stopped short. The building appeared to be deserted; the grounds were unkempt and overgrown, and the outer wall was falling down. There was no sign of guards or any other people or animals around. As far as it was possible to tell, the place had been abandoned for years, maybe decades. But when they looked, they could see a thin, twisting column of smoke rising from somewhere in the complex.  
  
Kagome and her friends exchanged glances... or at least, those members of the group who were currently on speaking terms exchanged glances, and then everybody looked at Kagome and waited for her decision. Not for the first time, she wondered why everybody just assumed she was in charge here when she was actually the one who knew the _least_ about this time.  
  
"What do you think?" Miroku asked her.  
  
She licked her lips and looked at the castle, trying to sort out what she was sensing. "I think..." she shut her eyes for a moment. "I think the shard we've been following is in there, but at the same time, it's still... oh!" she exclaimed as she figured it out. "It's underground! There must be a basement or something, and the shard's down there."  
  
A second appraisal of the building did _not_ make this seem like a promising possibility. This wasn't Naraku's home, with its echoing empty halls, but still nobody liked the idea of walking into a castle where youkai might be lurking. It had every appearance of being a trap.  
  
"I don't think Naraku's here," Kagome added. "I only sense the one shard, but there could be one of his dolls, or an underling. Or it could just be some youkai who's using the castle as a base," she added. After all, it didn't do to be paranoid. "Whoever it is, they probably know we're here."  
  
Sango nodded, and Kagome noticed that she was still standing with her back towards Miroku.  
  
"Let's split up," Kagome decided. Not only would that allow them to cover more ground, it might also ease everybody's temper. "One group can go in the front entrance, and the other can look for a back way in. Sango, why don't you come with me?"  
  
"Why do you want _Sango_ to go with you?" Inuyasha asked.  
  
"Because otherwise," the youkai-huntress replied, before Kagome could speak, "I'd have to go with _somebody else_." She glared at Miroku.  
  
Shippou was doing his best to keep dry by hiding behind Kagome's legs. She squatted down in order to talk to him. "Shippou-chan," she said, "I have a very important job for you."  
  
"What's that?" he asked timorously.  
  
"I need you and Kirala to stand guard out here," she replied. "There's a sheltered spot over there by the way."  
  
"Yes, ma'am!" Shippou saluted, relieved that his important job would not involve going indoors or being out in the rain.  
  
The two small youkai huddled up in the tiny dry space under an overhanging bit of roof, and the others split up to explore. Kagome and Sango headed up the main staircase and vanished into the darkness beyond, while Miroku and Inuyasha made their way around the side of the building.  
  
"You know, Inuyasha," remarked Miroku, the rings on his staff jingling as he walked, "if you're going to be so obvious about it, you might as well just come right out and _say_ something."  
  
"What the hell are you talking about?" the hanyou growled.  
  
"Kagome," Miroku clarified, though he suspected Inuyasha knew very well. "Girls don't like taking hints. They want to be asked. At the rate you're going, twenty years from now the most intimate you two get will _still_ be you letting her watch you polish your sword. No double entendre intended."  
  
"Shut up," Inuyasha said, scowling. The two boys rounded a corner to the back of the castle, where the wide, pillared veranda was still mostly intact. "Hey, can I ask you something?" Inuyasha wanted to know as they climbed the shallow steps.  
  
"Of course," Miroku replied, anticipating a request for romantic advice.  
  
But that wasn't what Inuyasha was after. "You go around asking any girl we meet if she'll bear your child," he said. "Have you ever actually convinced one to try?"  
  
"I..." Miroku began, but then his eyes focused on something behind Inuyasha's back. "There's an entrance over there," he pointed. "Come on."  
  
The doorway opened onto a large, dark space. One wall had partially fallen in, and the wooden floor had been consumed by damp – grass was growing inside, and the place stank of rot. Their footsteps made no noise as they crossed the room.  
  
"You didn't answer the question," said Inuyasha.  
  
"No," agreed Miroku, "and I'm not going to. There's a staircase over here," he went on. "Looks like it goes down. If the shard's in the basement..."  
  
Inuyasha interrupted: "are you telling me that _you're_ a..."  
  
"No," Miroku repeated, squinting into the darkness. "I'm not telling you _anything_. I think there's a light down there."  
  
There _was_ a light – somewhere at the bottom of the staircase was a faint, yellowish glow. The boys ran down to look, Inuyasha taking the steps three or four at a time while Miroku scurried to keep up. It was quite a long way down, three or four stories, and the monk was quite out of breath by the time they came to the bottom.  
  
The room at the foot of the stairs was in much better shape than the one at the top. All floors, walls, and ceilings were intact and even looked new, and a cooking fire was burning under a pot of rice. On the other side of it, a woman in an elegant, dove-gray kimono was standing, smiling as if she'd been waiting for them. Her eyes shone bright blue-green, reflecting the firelight, and she had the pointed ears of a youkai.  
  
"Ah, and here's the male half of the expedition," she said. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming!"  
  
There was another doorway in the far wall, and just inside it were two small piles of clothing. Kagome's uniform lay in a heap, as if she'd taken it off in a hurry and carelessly dropped it instead of putting it away properly. Her backpack had fallen next to it, its contents spilled haphazardly out the top. The pink and green cloth of Sango's kimono was visible under her boomerang, also lying on the floor as if hurriedly discarded.  
  
Miroku and Inuyasha stared a moment, then the hanyou drew his sword and stepped forward, baring his teeth as the blade transformed. "Where is Kagome?" he demanded.  
  
"Your little friend in the funny outfit?" the woman asked tranquilly. "She's fine."  
  
"Where _is_, she, then?" Inuyasha demanded. "What did you do with her?"  
  
"Oh, she's in here." The woman opened one hand to reveal a tiny square box made of red and black lacquer. "Along with the other young woman. They weren't even hard to catch. Would you like to see?" she inquired politely, and lifted the lid off the box.  
  
"Inuyasha, don't look," said Miroku, grabbing the other boy's sleeve... but it was too late. The hanyou's body seemed to dissolve under his fingers, leaving him standing there holding onto an empty red shirt. The tetsusaiga clattered to the floor, a harmless, rusty old blade.  
  
"Now your turn," the youkai woman said to Miroku.  
  
He shut his eyes and took a step backwards, trying to think fast. Somehow he was going to have to fight this woman without looking into her box – perhaps he could use the void in his hand, but that might well suck the entire building in with her. "Who are you?" he asked.  
  
"I am Meimou, keeper of worlds," her voice replied, right in his ear. It was too close for comfort; he opened his eyes without really meaning to, and found himself looking directly into the bottom of Meimou's box. At first, its insides appeared to be pitch black, but then he made out tiny lights twinkling in the bottom, yellow and white and blue. It was as if the box contained a piece of the night sky. The starry darkness swelled bigger and bigger until it filled Miroku's vision...  
  
And then something round and orange bounced up and hit him in the face. 


	3. Chapter Three

In his life, Miroku had definitely seen _stranger_ things, but this was without any question the most jarring; one moment he was staring at distant stars in the bottom of Meimou's box, feeling as if he were floating in space... and the next, he was back on solid ground and something rather resembling a large pomelo was flying towards him.  
  
He put up his hands to defend himself, but wasn't fast enough. The unidentified flying object sailed right by them and smacked him painfully in the face, demonstrating in the process that it was in fact something significantly more solid than a giant piece of fruit. Miroku staggered backwards, grabbing his nose – which had taken the brunt of the blow – then lost his balance and landed hard on his backside.  
  
Half a dozen voices burst out laughing.  
  
The orange sphere rolled away across the wooden floor, coming to rest at the feet of a boy in his mid to late teens, who scooped it up and bounced it a couple of times. "Hey, man," he said to Miroku. "You okay?"  
  
The only response the disoriented monk could manage was, "uh?" He was trying to figure out where he was, but what he was seeing did not make sense in any context he knew of. It was a vast and mostly empty room, as big as a palace hall, with colourful geometric patterns painted on the floor. The high walls appeared to be made out of stone bricks, and the ceiling was held up by a complicated system of metal rafters, from which bell-shaped lamps were hanging. A number of people, all teenage boys wearing loose white, orange, and blue clothing, were wandering around inside it.  
  
"Hey," the boy who'd caught the ball repeated, waving a hand in front of Miroku's face. "You all right?"  
  
"Who, be?" asked Miroku. He rubbed his nose and winced. "I thig I'b fide..."  
  
"Dude!" a second boy said, "your nose is bleeding!"  
  
"Id is?" Miroku looked at his fingers – there was blood on them. He licked it off, then carefully pinched the bridge of his nose as he started to get up. Whoever they were, these boys seemed awfully calm for just having had somebody appear out of nowhere in their midst... but it was of course entirely possible that they'd been expecting him. It was much more important to ascertain whether or not they were...  
  
At that point, his train of thought came to such a screaming halt that his feet fell out from under him again. Breathing hard, he transferred custodianship of his nose to his left hand, and held the right one up to look at it. The boys were laughing at him again, but he could barely hear them over the thumping of his heartbeat.  
  
His right hand – he'd felt as if there were something wrong with it, and had nearly panicked upon realizing that he was not wearing his glove or his beads... but now that he looked, he saw that they would not have been necessary. There was nothing in the palm of his hand except for uninterrupted skin. Miroku shut his eyes, shook his head, and looked again, but saw the exact same thing. The void had vanished.  
  
"Took one for the team, eh, Houshi?" asked another voice – this one proved to belong to a stout, muscular man with a beard, who grabbed Miroku's arm and pulled him rather roughly to his feet. "What's the damage?"  
  
"Where ab I?" Miroku asked. He inhaled hard, trying to clear his nose so he could speak properly, but that just seemed to make the bleeding worse. "Whad 'apped? Who are you?"  
  
The man's eyebrows rose, while the boys, who had gathered around to watch, began snickering again.  
  
"Funny, Houshi," the man said, not sounding amused in the slightest. "Let me see." He pushed Miroku's hand away to take a look at the injury. "Hmm," he frowned. "Get on up to the nurse and get that looked at... and no more joking around, you guys," he added, addressing the group at large. "We're playing against Patton in less than a week! Get right back down here when you're done, Houshi, and everybody else, back in your pairs and back to work!"  
  
"Bud I..." Miroku began. He was about to protest that he hadn't been joking – that he didn't know where he was or what was going on... but then the bearded man gave him a suspicious glance, and he changed his mind. These people _seemed_ friendly... but to judge by the way they acted, they had mistaken him for somebody else. He had no idea what they'd do when they found out he wasn't who they thought he was, so for now, he'd better just take advantage of the opportunity to escape.  
  
"Something else?" the man asked.  
  
"Doe, sir," Miroku replied meekly. "I'b goig dow."  
  
There were two sets of double doors in the far wall of the giant room – Miroku had some trouble before he figured out that they swung open rather than sliding, but he worked it out and stepped into a drab, dimly lit hallway. The door shut itself behind him and he, with a wall between himself and any potentially hostile people, stopped to re-examine his right hand. It bore no scar, no sign that the void had ever been there. It was just a perfectly ordinary hand.  
  
Maybe it wasn't even Miroku's hand! The people here talked to him as if he were somebody they knew, and he wasn't wearing his own clothing – he was dressed in the same loose, baggy sleeveless shirt and short trousers as the other boys. And nobody had called him by his name yet; they'd been calling him 'Houshi', which was an occupation. What if he didn't even _look_ like himself? He needed to find a mirror...  
  
"_Miroku_!" a voice exclaimed.  
  
This time, he was able to see what was coming before it hit him – it was a girl, with long yellow hair and wearing only the barest possible minimum of clothes, and she was running towards him faster than he would have thought anyone could move while wearing what must have been very uncomfortable shoes.  
  
"Stop!" he said, holding up both hands.  
  
She screeched to a halt... then jumped on him and threw her arms around his neck anyway. "Miroku!" she wailed, all but hugging the air right out of his lungs. "You're bleeding! You poor _baby_, are you all right?"  
  
This was an unexpected development, to say the least. "Uh... I'b fide," Miroku replied carefully. The girl was very pretty, but now was definitely not the time to be thinking about any kind of dalliance... dammit.  
  
"What _happened_?" she asked, stepping back. "Did somebody hit you? Because if they did, I swear, I'm going to make them so sorry..."  
  
"Dobody hit be," Miroku assured her, though he honestly wasn't certain if this were true – how did he know that thing hadn't been thrown at him on purpose? "I god hid in de dose wid a... um..."  
  
"With a basketball?" the girl asked. "Poor thing!" she repeated, then grabbed his hand. "We have to get you to the nurse – come on!"  
  
Arguing with her would probably have been fruitless; she all but yanked Miroku off his feet as she set off running, dragging the poor monk helplessly behind her. They climbed two flights of stairs at a run, and then she led him down another hallway towards a door at the far end... and never once in covering all this distance did she even for a moment stop talking.  
  
"You don't think it's broken, do you?" she asked anxiously.  
  
Miroku shook his head.  
  
"Oh, good," she nodded. "Todd in Home Economics broke his nose last week – did I tell you that? I don't think I did. Actually, it was Ashleigh broke it for him when she heard that Jennifer B. had caught him in the locker room with Lucia last week. I've got five dollars bet on them being back together before the end of the week – you _know_ Ashleigh always forgives him everything. Who threw the ball?"  
  
"I didn't see," Miroku replied honestly. "I just saw it coming... and then everybody started to laugh at me," he added, testing to see if she'd be sympathetic.  
  
"They _did_?" The girl looked horrified. "Ohh, when I catch them, I'm going to..."  
  
"I think my nose has stopped bleeding." Miroku sniffed experimentally and glanced at the girl, who'd finally allowed him to stop just outside the door and was now looking at him with concern. This was most definitely too good to be true – a beautiful, big-breasted girl fawning over him only moments after a hostile youkai had transported him to this strange place? There had to be a catch somewhere.  
  
"Has it?" she asked eagerly. "Oh, that's good! But I think you should still see the nurse."  
  
Despite her conviction, Miroku had a feeling this would be a bad idea. "Listen," he said. "What did you say your name was?"  
  
Half a second later, he realized that this had been the _wrong question_. The girl's blue eyes suddenly went steely.  
  
"_What_ did you say?" she asked.  
  
Miroku tried to think fast – what rhymed with 'name' that she'd believe?  
  
She put her hands on her hips. "What's my name?"  
  
He tried to remain calm: he'd dealt with this kind of emergency before, and there were only so many syllables a girl's name could start with. "Sa... Se..." he guessed, but didn't get a positive reaction. "Za... Zu... Ji..." Still nothing. "Ka... Ko..."  
  
"_What is my name, Miroku Houshi_?"  
  
He gave up. "I don't know."  
  
His nose _had_ stopped bleeding, but only just... which meant that it immediately started again when the girl punched him. He fell back against the door, and she nodded in satisfaction and then turned and stamped off, her rear swaying provocatively under her tiny skirt.  
  
A moment went by, then there was a clunk and a whine of unhappy hinges as the door opened behind him. Miroku turned around, and found a plump woman with a short, boyish haircut looking at him. She sighed.  
  
"Hello, Miroku," she said. "Penelope again?"  
  
"Is thad her dabe?" Miroku asked.  
  
The woman shook her head. "Come on in, let's take a look at you." 


	4. Chapter Four

A few minutes later, Miroku left the nurse's office with a small white bandage on his nose, and having promised the nurse he would try to remember his girlfriends' names in the future. He shut the door behind him, then stopped and looked around at the empty hallway. What to do now?

The bearded man in the giant hall had told him to 'come right back', but Miroku didn't know the way and wasn't sure that would be a good idea in any case... after all, he didn't know where he was, or even what this place might be _for_. So instead, he decided to explore a bit. There didn't seem to be many people around. Maybe he could find a way out of this maze of stairs and hallways, and could then start figuring out what had happened to the others.

The building turned out to be not as large or as complicated as it had seemed at first. It appeared to be built out of stone, with two aboveground stories and a basement. Each floor was arranged around a square of wide hallways lined with metal cabinets. Thick wooden doors opened onto smaller side rooms, and where a few of these had been left open, Miroku peeked inside and always saw the same thing; an adult lecturing to a group of young people who were studiously taking notes.

So this was a school, then. That was a start. It was an awfully _big_ school – if the number of rooms were anything to go by, there had to be many hundreds of students – and the kids looked a bit old to still be learning reading, writing, and Confucius... but there was nevertheless something comforting about the building's familiar purpose. Now, he just had to find the exit.

He was contemplating the possibilities of a set of large wooden doors when he heard footsteps, approaching rapidly. Miroku turned around and saw one of the boys from the giant hall jogging towards him.

"Hey, Miroku!" the boy shouted.

The last person here who'd run up calling Miroku's name had first hugged and then attacked him, and with this still fresh in his mind, his response was automatic; every muscle tensed as he prepared to defend himself. The boy, seeing his altered stance, came to a hurried halt only a few feet away.

"Woah! It's okay!" the boy exclaimed. "It's just me, man. It's just me! Are you okay?" he added, sounding worried. "Donson was pretty pissed that you never came back. What happened?"

The 'it's just me's might have been more reassuring had this actually been somebody Miroku knew... but the boy didn't appear to be about to do anything violent. Miroku slowly lowered his arms, but remained on guard. "I... got lost," he said carefully.

"Lost?" The boy stared at him. "In _school_?"

"Yes," said Miroku, taking a note of the boy's tone – apparently, he thought Miroku was a student here and should therefore know his way around. "In school."

"Oh." The boy glanced down. "Did you hurt your hand?"

"Did I... what?" Miroku's heart jumped into his throat as he looked at his hands, but they still looked perfectly normal. It was creepy seeing the right one without the beads... what if the void came _back_? "No," he said. "It's fine."

"You keep rubbing at it," the boy pointed out.

"It's fine," Miroku repeated. "I'm fine." He needed to get rid of this boy and find a way out... it was tempting to ask for help, but he didn't want to risk another reaction like Penelope's. "I just need to..."

The boy looked _very_ worried now as he glanced sideways at the bandage on Miroku's nose. "How hard did he hit you?"

"No, I'm fine, really," Miroku insisted.

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Okay." The boy still sounded doubtful. "Are you... uh... still lost?"

"Yes," Miroku admitted.

"Uh-huh. Well, it's this way," he gestured for the monk to follow him.

Miroku didn't have any better ideas, so he did; the boy led him down a flight of stairs to the basement, and Miroku soon found himself back outside the high-ceilinged hall in which he'd first appeared. Rather than stop there, however, they turned right down a hallway and into a smaller but still good-sized room full of boys in various states of dress and undress. These all raised their heads to stare at Miroku when he entered.

"He says he's fine," said the boy who'd led the way.

This was greeted by general nodding and murmuring, and then Miroku was suddenly ignored as everyone got back to what they'd been doing – which appeared to be changing their clothes. There were rows of drawers set into the wall, with a name written on each, and the boys were taking off the loose uniforms they'd been wearing and swapping them for heavier, more fitted items from inside the drawers.

One drawer had 'Houshi' scrawled on a strip of white tape affixed to the front. Feeling that something was probably expected of him, he opened it for a look. Like the others, it proved to contain clothing; a pair of tight trousers made of some heavy black material that didn't look comfortable at all, and a sleeveless purple and white shirt not unlike the one he was already wearing. Miroku moved 'get his clothes back' higher up on his mental to-do list and began changing.

"Hey, Miroku," said one of the boys.

Miroku glanced at him. "Yes?"

The boy grinned. "We've got a project for you!"

"A... project?" Miroku echoed, puzzled. The trousers were turning out to be a bit of a 'project', themselves. They had a metal fastener on them not unlike the ones on Kagome's backpack, but for some reason much more difficult to close. After a bit of struggling, he got it done up, and sat down to put his shoes – big, clumsy-looking things – back on.

"Yeah." The boy nodded. "Remember on Thursday, you were saying that you could bed any girl in school in two weeks?"

"I said that?" That sounded like the boast of somebody who took advantage of women just for its own sake... not like something Miroku would ever say.

"'Course you did," said the boy. "And we've got one for you. We pooled our savings... and we'll bet you five hundred dollars you can't get Sango Taijiya in bed in two weeks."

For the first half-second, the only response Miroku could have managed to that was to ask what a 'dollar' was worth – after all, if it weren't very much, there wouldn't be much point in trying. Then the second half of the sentence found its way into his brain, and he dropped his left shoe.

"Sango's here?" he asked.

A couple of the boys looked around as if expecting to see her. "Uh..." said one.

"No, she's in driver's ed right now," a second broke in. "Same class as my girlfriend."

"Where's that?" asked Miroku.

"Well... out driving, I assume," the second boy said. He glanced at something strapped to his wrist. "Although the bell's gonna go any minute. If you go out back, you might be in time to..."

"Which way?" Miroku grabbed the boy's shoulders.

"Er... up the stairs and it's the big double door," the boy replied nervously.

"Thank you!" Miroku turned and ran out of the locker room, leaving the rest of the basketball team staring at his sneakers, left behind on the bench, and wondering just how hard the misthrown ball had hit him.

* * *

Sango and Kagome had entered the castle through its crumbling front gate, and then made their way through the twisting hallways, following Kagome's intuition for the location of the shard. It was pitch-dark inside the building, and after only a short ways, Kagome had to stop and take her flashlight out of her backpack. Its illumination wasn't much help, though – all it showed were ancient and crumbling walls and floors, each exactly like the last. Sango was reminded of what Inuyasha had said while they wandered in the forest – they were going in circles.

"Wait, Kagome," she said, noticing something out of the corner of her eye. "Turn the light off."

Kagome flicked the switch, and the darkness closed in. It took a moment for the girls' eyes to adjust to the lack of light, but when they did, both noticed the faint, ruddy orange flicker at the end of a hallway. Moving carefully, so as to make no noise, the girls crept down the hall and peeked in the door.

Sitting next to a small cooking fire was a female youkai. She looked up at the girls and then, to their surprise, stood and bowed deeply to them.

"Welcome," she said. "Are you the Shikon-hunters I've heard about?"

"Um... yes, I guess so," said Kagome slowly. "I'm Kagome and this is Sango."

"I am Meimou, keeper of worlds," the youkai replied. "I have been hoping you might find your way here. Might I ask a favour of you?"

Both girls remained wary; being greeted politely instead of immediately attacked was a refreshing change of pace, but it was also sufficiently unusual to keep them on their guard. "What kind of favour?" Kagome asked.

"I was hoping you could destroy an old enemy of mine," said Meimou. "If you do it, I will happily give you my piece of the Shikon no Tama – and my service, for as long as you should require it." She held up a small lacquered box hanging from her belt, and opened it. Sango craned her neck to see inside, expecting to see a pick crystal shard, but instead, all she saw was more blackness.

And then the ground opened up and swallowed her. 


	5. Chapter Five

The next thing Sango knew, she was sitting down, gripping some kind of hoop, and...

... and...

... and beyond that, she hadn't the slightest idea where she was or what she was doing there. The sky was blue and the ground dark gray, and colourful objects the size of carts were flying past on both sides of her. The seat she was sitting on lurched forward and then just as suddenly came to a jarring stop, apparently precipitating a loud, harsh blaring sound from behind her. It was all so sudden, and so bizarre – her brain simply could not make any sense of what her eyes and ears were telling it – that all normally unshakable Sango could do was to cry out in surprise and cover her ears as the sound went on and on.

"Woah! Woah!" a man's voice exclaimed. "What's wrong?"

Sango looked up with a jerk; she hadn't realized yet that she had company, but now she saw that she was in a small space, sitting next to a man some ten or twelve years her elder... and that she was strapped to her seat. This did nothing for the state of her nerves, nor did the realization that she appeared to be wearing somebody else's clothing; instead of her kimono, she was dressed in some kind of tight pink and white tunic and a pair of green trousers that felt as if they would fall off if she tried to stand up.

"What happened?" the man asked.

"I don't know," said Sango, with entire honesty.

The man shook his head. "You were doing so well."

"I was?"

"Yes," he said. "Why did you panic?"

Sango had no idea how to answer him, and wasn't interested in trying. The first thing she had to do, she decided, was get _out_ of this little enclosure – the air inside it was warm and stuffy – and then she had to figure out where this alien place _was_. The youkai named Meimou had obviously laid some kind of trap... maybe she was only interested in Kagome, and had sent Sango here to get her out of the way? She wouldn't know until she got back, and in the mean time, the first thing she had to work out was how to undo this restraining strap...

"Sango?" said the man.

She jumped – she hadn't realized he knew her name. Looking at him again, she realized that he, too, was tied down. Perhaps he was a fellow prisoner, rather than an enemy? "Yes?" she asked.

"Just calm down," he told her. "We can try it again. Put your foot back on the brake." He pointed to something on the floor.

Sango following his finger and saw three flat, rectangular objects near her feet. She moved a foot over one.

"No, no, that's the clutch," said the man with exaggerated patience. "It's that one. Much better!" he smiled as she found the right one and cautiously pushed it to the floor. "Very good. Now, I'll let it off over here." He took his own foot off a similar block on his side. "There. Are you all right?"

"Yes," said Sango slowly, though she was not at all sure she was telling the truth. What was the point of doing this?

"Okay," the man said, "now watch the light." Up ahead was a pole, to which was fixed a bank of three lanterns – green, yellow, and red. Only the red one was lit at the moment. "When it turns green – put a hand on the gearshift, Sango." He guided her right hand to a lever beside her. "Forward and right, remember?"

"Forward and right," she repeated. There were more colourful objects passing by in front of her now, rather than beside. They all seemed to have people sitting in them, and she realized that she and this man were inside a similar machine. Well, then, these weren't so terribly alien after all; they were just devices for transporting people and goods... nothing more than colourful carts that somehow pulled themselves instead of needing horses or oxen.

Sango hesitated – that description seemed familiar. Hadn't Kagome said something like that once, when describing the future she came from? Carts without horses... what had she called them? Automobiles! People in Kagome's time rode around in automobiles, which were like little rooms on wheels that could pull themselves without draft animals. Somehow, Sango must be in Kagome's time!

The red lantern extinguished itself and the green one came to life, and Sango carefully followed the man's instructions. Foot on the clutch, he told her, the lever went forward and right... then she had to press the third pedal, the 'gas'... and the automobile began to move smoothly forward. Sango gritted her teeth and gripped the steering wheel tightly.

"Good," the man said. "You're doing just fine, Sango. Give it some more gas – the speed limit here is forty."

The harder Sango pushed the pedal, the faster the vehicle moved. She let it accelerate until it was rolling along in tandem with the others on both sides.

"Much better," said the man, with an approving smile. "See, you're doing great. Let's get over a lane and make a right up ahead, and we'll head back to school. So put the turn signal on..."

He had to help her find the device in question, but its use proved to be pretty uncomplicated, as was steering, which only required turning the wheel she was gripping. In fact, despite the daunting size and speed of the automobiles, and the bizarre appearance of the buildings and people she could see through the window, Sango began to relax a little. This wasn't so difficult; she could do this.

But _why_ was she doing it? Why was she apparently in Kagome's time, and how had she _gotten_ there? So far as they'd ever been able to determine, only Kagome and Inuyasha were able to pass through time in the well. Was Meimou's box a similar portal? Or... physicians used boxes like that for medicine, so perhaps there was an enchantment of some kind inside the box, and it had put Sango to sleep for five hundred years? But if _that_ were true, why had she apparently awakened in the middle of something?

"Woah," said the man, pressing his own brake to make the automobile slow down. "Red light! Pay attention to the road, Sango. Don't worry, we're almost there."

And they were. After two more stops for red lights, the man directed Sango to take the automobile behind a sprawling brick building and stop there.

"There we go," he said, smiling at her as he undid the strap across his shoulders by pressing a button. "See, no reason to panic; you did just fine. I'll see you again on Wednesday, all right?"

"All right," said Sango. She undid her own harness, then had to study the door a moment before finding a handle – once she did, however, it opened easily, and she stepped, a little shakily, out onto the gravel. The trousers she was wearing slid down her hips, but did not, thankfully, fall off. Once she'd gotten out, the man moved over into the driver's seat.

"Here's your bag," he said, and handed her a backpack, a bit smaller than the one Kagome was always carrying and pink instead of yellow.

"Thank you." Sango bowed to him.

For some reason, he apparently found that funny. "You're welcome," he replied, laughing as he inclined his head in what seemed to be meant as a return bow. "See you in a couple of days."

Sango pushed the door shut and the automobile rumbled off, leaving her with a clear view of the back of the building... and of the boy in the purple shirt, who was standing and leaning against a metal mesh fence as if waiting for somebody. He straightened up to look at her, and both of them stared for a moment.

"Miroku?" she asked.

"Sango?" he responded, then hesitated a moment. "Wait – are you the _real_ Sango? Who created the... no," he shook his head. "Where _were_ we when you told us who created the Shikon no Tama."

"In Midoriko's cave, of course," Sango replied promptly. "Are you the real Miroku?" She tried to think of something only he would know. "When did you first ask me to bear your child?"

"At the lake," he replied, "when you asked me why I asked everybody but you."

Sango sighed, relieved; if that _wasn't_ Miroku, then it was an imposter who'd certainly done his homework. "I never thought I would be so glad to see _you_," she said – and then, on impulse, she dropped her bag and gave him a hug; after the rattling experience of having to learn to drive the automobile, it was just good to see a familiar face... even if it was Miroku's. He must have felt similarly, because he hugged back without even seeming to think of trying to grab her butt. "Where are we?"

"I don't know," he replied. "I've been here maybe a quarter of an hour; you and Kagome were already gone when Inuyasha and I found the basement, and he went before me... so if you and I are both here, I'd assume Kagome and Inuyasha are, too." He let go of Sango, but kept holding her hands, as if to reassure himself. "We'll have to find them, and then we can figure out where we are and how we got here."

"Oh, I think I know where we are," said Sango. "We're in Kagome's time."

"You think so?" asked Miroku, looking around. "In that case, I guess we ought to look for the well. That would be a logical place to try to meet up."

Sango opened her mouth to agree, but was cut off by a painfully loud buzzing noise emanating from the building. She and Miroku both covered their ears as the doors burst open and people came pouring out... including a group of boys who looked around before running up to where the two were standing. One of them held out a pair of shoes.

"Miroku," he said, "you forgot your... uh..." he came to a sharp halt as he took a good look at Sango. Behind him, the others also stopped short, all but falling over one another as they stared, mouths open. "You... um... forgot your shoes," the first boy finished, holding them out.

Miroku glanced at his feet – Sango did likewise, and realized that though he had stockings on, he was indeed missing shoes – then held out a hand for the pair the boy was offering. "Thank you," he said.

"Don't mention it," the boy said weakly. He looked at the pair's linked hands, then back at his companions.

"What is your problem?" Sango asked him. She pulled her fingers out of Miroku's grip and stepped back.

The boy swallowed. "Gentlemen," he said the others behind him. "I believe we've been had."

Sango looked at Miroku. "What are they talking about?"

"I have no idea," he replied, a little too quickly. "Let's look for Kagome."


	6. Chapter Six

"Yes, Kagome," said the teacher.

Kagome blinked and looked around, startled. The last thing she remembered, she'd been in the basement of a castle with Sango, confronting a female youkai. There hadn't been any sense of time passing, just a brief blackness and a sensation of floating, and now she was sitting in a classroom, her hand up as if she'd been about to answer a question.

Had it been a classroom at her own school, she would have figured that she'd fallen asleep in class and only dreamed about the feudal-era castle... but it wasn't. This room was larger than any of the ones at her school, with walls covered in travel posters from all over the world and, for some bizarre reason, a black counter at the back with several sinks in it. The students were dressed in street clothes rather than uniforms, and the teacher was certainly not one she recognized. Where was she?

"Well, Kagome?" asked the teacher.

"Um." She looked around again; everybody was looking at her expectantly. Apparently she _had_ been about to answer a question... but try as she might, she could not for the life of her remember where she was or how she'd come to be here, let alone what it was the teacher had just asked. "Sorry," she said, embarrassed. "What was the question?"

The class giggled.

"Which cities were the atomic bombs dropped on?" the teacher repeated patiently.

Oh. Well, _that_ was easy. "Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Kagome recited. Hadn't her class covered this at the end of _last_ year?

The teacher nodded. "Very good – brownie points for pronouncing them correctly. Make a note, class – that's hee-ROH-shee-ma, not hear-oh-SHEE-ma. Excellent. Now," he turned away, "somebody else – how long did it take the Japanese to surrender after the bombs were dropped?"

Kagome looked down at the notebook that lay open on her desk. The page was about half full of notes about the end of World War II... _definitely_ last year's material. The last time Kagome attended a history class, they'd been studying the end of the Shogunate in the 1800's. Why would they suddenly go over this again?

But then, this clearly wasn't Kagome's school, either. What was she doing here? Obviously, something had happened that she couldn't remember. After class, she decided, she would talk to the teacher. She would try not to weird him out too much, but hopefully she could find out what was going on.

When the bell rang, she gathered up her books with the rest of the class, then went up to the front of the room. "Excuse me, sir," she said to the teacher.

He was busy erasing what he'd written on the chalkboard. "Yes, Kagome?"

"I don't remember if I already talked to you about this," she said, "but at my old school, we covered World War II last year."

He paused, looking back over his shoulder at her. "Your... old school?"

"Yes," said Kagome. "Hitotsubashi Jr. High."

The teacher stood still for a moment, then put down his chalk brush and turned to face her. "Kagome," he said, giving her a funny look, "you went _here_ last year. You were in my class."

"I was?" she asked, startled.

"Yes... unless of course you have an evil twin I didn't know about," said the teacher.

She'd gone _here_ last year? But that would mean that the period of time she couldn't remember must be well over a year! Kagome swallowed. "This is a strange question, I know," she said, "but what year am I in?"

"Uh... you're in the twelfth grade, if that's what you mean," said the teacher. "Are you all right?"

Kagome's knees almost collapsed out from underneath her. The _twelfth grade_? But if that were the case... how could she forget _three years_ of her life? "No," she said. "I think I need to call my Mom."

"That sounds like a good idea." The teacher pulled a cellular phone out of his back pocket. "Here, use my cell."

It wasn't until after she'd already dialed that it occurred to Kagome to wonder whether a new phone number might not be among the things she'd forgotten. The idea made her feel a bit sick as she listened to the ringing... but then there was a click as whoever was on the other end picked up, and her mother's familiar voice said, "Higurashi residence."

Kagome breathed out. "Mom?" she said. "It's me. Can you come and meet me at school?"

"Did you miss the bus again?" Mrs. Higurashi asked.

"No..." said Kagome. "I've just... got a bit of a problem. I'll tell you about it at home." The loss of her memory probably had something to do with Naraku and the Shikon no Tama. Her mother would understand that... but the teacher, who was listening in as he finished clearing the chalkboard, would _not_.

"All right," said Mrs. Higurashi. "I'll be a bit – I've got to pick Souta up, and we'll have to stop on the way home to drop him at swimming. Is that all right?"

"Of course," said Kagome. "Thanks, Mom."

"No problem. I'll be right there – see you soon." There was a tone as Mrs. Higurashi hung up.

Kagome handed the cell phone back to the teacher. "Which way is out?" she asked.

So much for trying not to weird him out, Kagome thought as the teacher guided her out to the front of the school. It must be the end of the day; rather than going to another class, everybody was hanging around on the front lawn and getting on big yellow buses that didn't look anything like the ones Kagome was used to taking to school. She thanked the teacher again and sat down on the steps to wait for her mother.

"Hey, Kagooooome!" somebody called.

She looked up and saw a group of girls she didn't know... or perhaps had just forgotten. "Yes?"

"That outfit is great!" one girl said. "It _almost_ makes you look like you have actual _boobs_!" The entire group dissolved into giggles.

"Where'd you get it?" a second girl asked. "The Salvation Army?"

What was _their_ problem? Kagome glanced down at what she was wearing – a white t-shirt and camouflage-print overalls, both much too big for her – then shook her head and decided to focus instead on trying to remember something from before her sudden awakening in history class. Try as she might, however, she could not recall _anything_ after meeting the youkai who'd called herself Meimou. Was _she_ the one responsible for Kagome's amnesia? When she got home, she would have to go straight into the well and see the others.

Before she could do that, however, she had to get home, and since she didn't know the way, herself, she had to wait for the bus to arrive with her mother and Souta. The crowd slowly thinned as her fellow students got on buses and in cars, leaving the lot empty of anyone except for Kagome herself and a group of boys standing outside a door smoking cigarettes by the time her family finally arrived.

To Kagome's surprise, they came not on a bus but in a big, dark blue Sport Utility Vehicle with Mrs. Higurashi in the driver's seat. This monstrosity stopped right in front of Kagome and the door opened.

"Hi, Honey," said Mrs. Higurashi. "Sorry we took so long – Souta couldn't find his bathing suit."

"It's okay." Kagome grabbed her bag and got in the vehicle, but she was more puzzled than ever. Her family didn't own a car; they'd never _needed_ one. And if they _had_... there were only the four of them. Why own such an enormous vehicle when something much smaller and more economical would do?

The whole thing was giving Kagome a horrible sinking feeling. Three years was a long time. What if they'd _moved_?

"You said on the phone you had a bit of a problem," said Mrs. Higurashi, as Kagome did up her seat belt. "What's the matter?"

"I'm not really sure," said Kagome. "I was sitting in my history class today, and..."

"Betcha she got dumped in the garbage can again," said a sullen voice from the back seat.

It was such an un-Souta-like thing to say that for a moment Kagome didn't believe it could have been her brother who'd said it. When she looked back, however, there he was, glaring at her. What had she done to annoy him?

She began to turn around again, but then sat up sharply and took a second look as something rather important came to her attention.

"What?" asked Souta sourly.

Kagome had thought three years must've passed without her remembering. But if that was the case... why hadn't Souta gotten any older? Surely there should be a visible difference between the way he'd looked at nine and the way he'd look at twelve!

"Kagome?" Mrs. Higurashi said. "You were saying?"

"I..." Kagome shook her head. This wasn't her time, after all, and these people weren't her mother and brother... this was some kind of a trap! What had happened to the others?

"Mom!" said Souta. "I'm gonna be late for swimming!"

"All right, Souta," said Mrs. Higurashi, putting the SUV in gear. "Take your time, Kagome."

Kagome nodded, grateful for the reprieve... but she would have to answer the question eventually, and didn't know who might be listening when she did, or where she was now being taken. Unable to think of anything to say, she simply said nothing until they dropped Souta off at the YMCA... but once he was gone, Kagome was alone in the car with the woman who looked like her mother. Now what?

"What was it you wanted to tell me, Kagome?" the woman asked, as they pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the street.

"Well," said Kagome. "I..." a flash of red outside the window suddenly caught her eye. "Look out!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, my goodness!" The woman stepped on the brake and the vehicle came screaming to a halt. For a moment, Kagome was certain they were going to hit the boy who'd just dashed out on the street in front of them... but somehow, at the last possible second he saw them coming and jumped onto the hood, where he landed on his feet with Kagome looking right into his eyes. She stared, and he stared right back.

He was about seventeen or eighteen years old, with brown eyes and long black hair, and dressed in beat-up jeans and a red hoodie that had somehow gotten spattered with white paint. But he was, nevertheless, unmistakably Inuyasha.


	7. Chapter Seven

The sight of Kagome's clothes, empty on the floor, had left Inuyasha nearly blind with rage. He drew the tetsusaiga with every intention of carving this self-proclaimed 'Keeper of Worlds' into chops and roasts if she wouldn't bring the girls back... and then once she _did_ bring them back, he was damn well going to slice her in half anyway! Miroku's warning didn't even register; by the time he realized the monk had even said anything, it was already too late. He felt himself falling, and then he emerged out of darkness into more darkness... and a cloud of hot, choking smoke.

"... shouldn't have to support freeloaders, related to them or not," a voice was saying. "Don't you agree, Inuyasha?"

"What?" asked Inuyasha... or at least, he _tried_ to ask; when he opened his mouth he inhaled a lungful of the smoke, and sent himself into a coughing fit as the hot, sharp vapor burned his eyes and throat. It was several seconds before he could finally look up, blinking tears out of his stinging eyes, to see who had spoken.

It was Sesshoumaru.

Inuyasha's first thought was that his half-brother must have gone mad. The Lord of the Western Lands was dressed not in his usual kimono and armor, but in a red and white leather jacket with a huge fur collar, and matching trousers that looked tight enough to cause gangrene. Tinted glasses hid his eyes, there were no markings on his face, and he was reclining on a car seat with a cigarette in his mouth. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, Inuyasha would have found it impossible to imagine Sesshoumaru doing anything so undignified.

But that didn't change the fact that it was still Sesshoumaru. Inuyasha jumped to his feet and reached for his sword, but his fingers found nothing at his hip except thick cloth of a texture quite different from his fire-rat shirt. When he looked down to see what the problem was, the surface he was standing on lurched suddenly into motion and he, unprepared, all but fell into his brother's lap. Sesshoumaru grabbed him by the collar and dragged him upright.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" he demanded, breathing more stinging smoke in Inuyasha's face. "I asked you a _question_!"

This had to be a nightmare. Only in a nightmare could Inuyasha possibly find himself without a weapon and facing Sesshoumaru in the back of an automobile. He had to wake up... or failing that, he had to get the hell out of here!

There was only one thing he could really think of it do, and it was probably tantamount to suicide... but without other options, he went ahead and did it anyway. He yanked his shirt out of Sesshoumaru's grip, kicked him in the stomach, and then dived for the nearest door. With his usual luck, he expected it to be locked, but when he pulled the handle it came right open and spilled him out onto the pavement. The automobile – a very long, low-slung one, painted red and white – sped on ahead without stopping while Inuyasha rolled head-over heels down the road.

His head kept spinning long after his body had stopped, and his vision was a little fuzzy as he picked himself up... and realized that he'd just jumped out of one dangerous situation to land in another; he was in the middle of a busyroad, with traffic whizzing by on both sides of him.

"Get out of the street, you little punk!" somebody hollered out of an open window.

Inuyasha scrambled onto the median, shaking his head in an attempt to get its contents back in working order. _Why_ was he so dizzy? This certainly wasn't the first time he'd jumped off a moving vehicle, and even if he hadn't exactly had time to prepare for it, he should _not_ have made such a clumsy landing. And his body's apparent refusal to recover from the fall was absurd – what was _wrong_ with him?

And then he realized – the hair hanging in his face was _black_.

He grabbed a lock and held it up for examination; no, definitely his, and definitely black. When he reached to feel his ears, he found them round-topped and hairless, and running his tongue across his teeth only confirmed it; he was human. What the... but it was the middle of the day! Exactly what the hell was going _on_?

Meimou. Inuyasha gritted his teeth – before he'd found himself in the car with Sesshoumaru, he'd been in the castle basement, facing the youkai who called herself Meimou. This must be _her_ fault... what had she done to him?

Well, whatever it was, she was damned well going to pay for it. Inuyasha stood up, slowly, and tried to get his bearings. In the direction the automobile had gone there were a few small buildings, and beyond that he could see flat countryside that faded off to bluish mountains in the distance. In the other direction, the road went downhill towards a suburban shopping centre, beyond which were houses and then, on the horizon, the silver office towers of a downtown business district. Was that Tokyo? It didn't look like the pictures Inuyasha had seen on postcards.

But it was in the direction Sesshoumaru was _not_ going in. With no other information, that was good enough. Inuyasha went that way.

He quickly realized that wherever he was, it wasn't Tokyo. The scenery refused to look familiar, the signs were all wrong, and everybody was driving on the wrong side of the road... and it was the latter fact that nearly got him run over when he momentarily forgot it and tried to run across a street in front of an enormous vehicle that he thought was going to turn the other way. Just in time, he realized it was coming straight for him and jumped onto the hood, grabbing the top of the windshield to keep himself from sliding off and falling under the wheels. The automobile screeched to a halt, and Inuyasha found himself face to face with – oh, thank heavens – Kagome.

Or _was_ it Kagome? She looked... older. Not _much_ older, but definitely older all the same, as if she were sixteen or seventeen instead of fifteen. Maybe it was somebody who just _looked_ like Kagome...

She stared at him a moment, then opened the car door to get a better look. "Inuyasha?"

"Yeah. It's me." He slid off the hood.

Kagome looked him over. "You're..."

"I noticed," he interrupted sourly.

"Do you two know each other?" asked Kagome's mother, who was in the driver's seat of the vehicle. What kind of stupid question was that? Did she not recognize him? Inuyasha started to reply, but Kagome held up a hand to tell him no.

"Yes, we do," she said. "This is Inuyasha. Can he come home with us?"

"Oh, the boy from the concert!" Kagome's mother nodded and smiled. "I remember now. And I don't see why he can't. Climb in, Inuyasha – it's nice to meet you."

"Thanks," he replied carefully, getting in to the back seat. Kagome sat down next to him and did up her seat belt, and then off they went, as if nothing unusual were happening... which _was_, he had to admit, exactly how Kagome's mother reacted to _anything_. Somehow, though, it was less than reassuring.

"I'm sorry, Mom," Kagome said. "I probably shouldn't have called you but... well, I wasn't feeling very well. I had a sort of a dizzy spell, and I didn't want to faint on the bus or anything."

"Ah, I see," Kagome's mother nodded. "Too much partying!"

"I guess so," Kagome agreed. She sounded to Inuyasha as if she were lying, but that would be as ridiculous as everything else that had happened here. Kagome _never_ lied to her mother.

"Well, you'll recover," Kagome's mother said cheerfully. "So, Inuyasha – you're a Sesshoumaru fan too, then?"

"Of course he is," said Kagome, before Inuyasha could reply; which was good, because he would have had no idea what to say to such a ridiculous question. She lowered her breath and whispered to him, "listen – I don't know where we are or how we got here, but this isn't my time and that's not my mother."

"What?" asked Inuyasha. "So what's going on?"

"I don't know," she said. "I think somebody's trying to trick us into something. They've sent us somewhere that's supposed to _look_ like my time but they didn't get it right. Just act like nothing's wrong and maybe we can figure out what they want before they figure out they're not fooling us."

"All right..." he said uncertainly, though he had no idea how he was supposed to act like nothing was wrong when it was patently obvious that _everything_ was. "Where are we going?"

She shrugged. "But maybe we can get away to talk when we get there."

* * *

Time passed very slowly for Shippou and Kirala, who true to their instructions had stayed huddled in the sheltered spot in the corner of the ruins. It seemed to Shippou that it had been _hours_ since the grownups had gone to investigate the castle, and he was beginning to worry, but he told himself not to be silly. In the gray rain it was impossible to tell how much time was passing, and things always seemed to take longer when you're waiting for something. Probably it had only been a few minutes, and the scary situation only made it _seem_ like much longer.

After a while, in which the rain fell, the dry spot shrank, and the two little youkai got more and more damp, a light came on inside the ruins. Shippou had almost fallen asleep by then, but Kirala nudged him awake. "Huh?" he asked, looking up at the lit windows. "Are they back?"

Kirala meowed, but it wasn't a happy sound; she was concerned. She rubbed against Shippou's back as if to reassure him, then hunkered down in the grass and began creeping towards the light, staying low to the ground so as not to be seen or heard. A nugget of panic formed in Shippou's chest as he watched her go... he didn't want to be here alone! After a moment's agonizing indecision, he dropped to all fours and followed her.

The two little youkai made their way around to the side of the castle, where a lamp was projecting two silhouettes onto a papered window. One was of a stranger, a woman whose shape and scent were not familiar, but the other... the other was the outline of a man wrapped in the skin of a giant baboon, and carried a heavy, sharp scent like rotten fruit. The smell of miasma.

"You have them, then?" the male figure asked.

"Yes," the woman nodded. "All four."


	8. Chapter Eight

Shippou was terrified – if it had been up to him, he'd have turned around and just run away, as far and as fast as he could, then found something to hide under and stayed there the rest of his life. He stayed put not out of bravery or a concern for the others, but simply because he was too scared to move; he could _picture_ himself running away, but his muscles simply refused to respond.

The woman held up an object dangling on a string. "They weren't even difficult to catch," she said. "I got them all within a few minutes."

"Exactly where did you put them?" Naraku asked.

"Oh, it's a world I found in a story somewhere," the woman replied. "Youkai don't even exist there – and they are all powerless. The priest doesn't have the use of his void, the girl is without her miko powers, and the little hanyou trapped in his human form."

"And my monsters?"

"May enter it unaltered," said the woman. "There are no equivalents to them in the world in the box. The children are trapped in the bodies and capabilities of their alternate selves, but you may send your assassins in and call them back as you please. I doubt you'll have the slightest trouble with them."

Something tugged at Shippou's clothes, and in his sudden panic he all but jumped out of them – but it was only Kirala. The kitten was pulling on his vest, urging him to get away from the window. He crouched down next to her in the shadows at the foot of the wall... and not a moment too soon. Seconds later, the crumbling gates were torn violently off their hinges and a pair of huge and horrible shapes, their exact outlines indistinct in the rainy darkness, lumbered through. The creatures' high backs scraped the lintel, raising sparks, as they made their way into the castle.

"We're the only ones outside the box," he said to Kirala. "We have to do something!"

She mewed agreement... but what _could_ they do? Shippou was, as the world seemed to delight in reminding him, very small and not terribly strong. He was barely a match for things his own size; what could he possibly do against monsters like those? Maybe Kirala could assume her adult form and... no, the creatures would still be twice her size. They needed help!

Help! Of course – _that's_ what he could do! He could go and find somebody to help! But who? He curled up and thought about it, barely daring to breathe for fear of distracting himself. There had to be _somebody_ who would... "I know!" he exclaimed. "We'll go get Kouga! He can help!" Kouga was a big, powerful wolf youkai with two Shikon shards of his own, and he loved Kagome – if anybody would be willing and able to fix this, Kouga would!

Kirala purred.

As stealthily as possible, the two little youkai slipped out of the castle, holding their noses against the overwhelming acidic stench the monsters had left in their tracks, and ran back into the woods. Once they thought they were at a safe distance – basically the point at which Shippou knew he'd collapse if he had to run any further on foot – Kirala transformed and took off into the sky, with Shippou clinging to her back.

"The wolves live in the mountains, over there." Shippou pointed, and Kirala adjusted her course accordingly... but it already seemed like a hopeless task. The mountain range was far away on the horizon. Even at the speeds Kirala was capable of, it would take a day at least to get there and back. By then, the others could all be dead.

But they had to try. Kirala bounded towards the distant peaks, and Shippou buried his hands and face in her warm yellow fur, feeling rather sick in the knowledge that the two of them were the only hope the others had.

* * *

Had Kagome still any doubts that this was only a facsimile of her time, they would have evaporated immediately upon entering what was supposed to be her bedroom. The house they arrived at was reassuringly familiar; it had a garage out front and a swimming pool out back that definitely weren't a part of the shrine complex in Tokyo, but once she got indoors she found that all the rooms were where they were supposed to be. She climbed eerily half-familiar stairs and opened the first door on her right...

... and stopped dead. Inuyasha almost fell over her, but in raising his head to ask what had happened he caught sight of what she was seeing. A moment passed in utter silence.

"What the _hell_ is _this_?" Inuyasha asked finally.

The room was Kagome's; it was the same size and laid out the same, even if the style of the furniture was different, and it was neat and tidy. But the walls were covered with posters... and with a only a very few exceptions, they were posters of Sesshoumaru.

Kagome was torn between laughter and horror at the sight. There was Sesshoumaru in the front seat of a sports car, Sesshoumaru playing the guitar under harsh multicoloured lights, Sesshoumaru with no shirt on...

"Those aren't mine," she said.

"That is... those are..." Inuyasha couldn't even seem to find words. "Then whose _are_ they?"

"Not mine," Kagome repeated weakly. "I told you... this isn't my time. I think it's some illusion that youkai in the castle basement put together. Did you talk to her?"

"No," he said, still staring at the posters. "Why would we? She was in there with yours and Sango's clothes lying all over the floor. We thought she'd killed you, so why would we stop and talk?"

"Mine and Sango's..." Kagome couldn't look away, either. It was not unlike witnessing a particularly terrible car accident – the sight of the posters was so horrifying that she _had_ to keep looking to convince herself she wasn't imagining it. She shook her head hard; those were going to have to come down. There was no way she'd be able to sleep with half-naked Sesshoumarus leering at her from every wall. "So... are Sango and Miroku here too, then?" she asked.

"Probably," said Inuyasha. "Maybe not Miroku. He warned me not to look."

Kagome climbed up on the bed and started prying thumbtacks out of the wall. "Not to look... into the box, you mean?"

"Yeah," he said.

Kagome thought about that. "She called herself the Keeper of Worlds. Maybe this is a parallel universe."

"What's one of those?"

"It's a theory scientists talk about," Kagome explained. She got the tacks out of the first poster, and rolled it up. "There are lots of other universes, and the way things work there isn't quite the same as it our universe. Nobody's ever figured out a way to get to them, but maybe her little box is some kind of portal. I guess she wanted us out of the way. Maybe there was something she wanted to do that she thought we'd try to stop her."

"Maybe she's working with Naraku," said Inuyasha. "Getting us stuck in here is probably almost as good as killing us."

They continued to discuss it while Kagome took down the rest of the posters and, for lack of a better idea about what to do with them all, stashed them under her bed. There wasn't an obvious solution to the situation... it was obvious enough that they were going to have to figure out how to get back to the real world, but Kagome had no idea how to even start. Neither had ever encountered a situation like this.

"If the box is a portal," said Inuyasha, "then it's got to open at this end somewhere. Maybe she exists in this world, too, and we just have to find _her_."

"That could be..." mused Kagome. "Maybe if we..." but she was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Yes?"

Mrs. Higurashi opened the door and stuck her head inside. "I'm sorry to interrupt," she said, "but since you've got your friend over, I decided to order pizza for dinner. We get a coupon for a free movie rental with the vegetarian special, so is there anything you wanted to see?"

"Not really," said Kagome. "Inuyasha, did you want to watch a movie?"

He shrugged.

"I'll let Souta pick, then," Mrs. Higurashi said. "Mike's mother is bringing him home from swimming, so he should be back soon. I have to get in the shower before I go to my meeting tonight, so would you listen for the doorbell?"

"Sure," said Kagome. "No problem."

"Thanks, dear." Mrs. Higurashi shut the door again.

Kagome shook her head and tried to remember what they'd been talking about. "Okay," she said, "the portal must open somewhere near to where we turned up, right? So tomorrow I'll take a look around the history classroom, and you can search... where were you when you got here?"

"Nowhere important," said Inuyasha sulkily.

"If you appeared there then it _must_ be important," Kagome pointed out. "Come on, where was it?"

He looked like it pained him to answer. "In the back of a car. With Sesshoumaru. And I don't know how I'd find it again, so don't even ask."

Kagome heard the water start to run as her mother got in the shower. "All right, then I guess we'll try the history room first. But if there's nothing there, we're going to _have_ to find your brother." She thought for a moment, then sat up. "Mom mentioned a concert and Sesshoumaru fans. Maybe..." she crossed to her dresser, where there was a stack of compact disks. "This is probably nuts, but maybe if I've got an album..."

The doorbell rang. Through her open bedroom window, Kagome heard Souta shout. "Hello! Anybody home? I forgot my key again!" There was a short pause, and then he rang the doorbell again, twice, and then knocked hard. "Mom!" he shouted, with a note of panic in his voice. "Kagome! Is anybody home! _Hey_!"

"I'm _coming_, Souta," Kagome called back. She pushed the CD's at Inuyasha. "Here, look through these," she said. "I'm just going to run downstairs and..."

"_Kagome_!" the knocking redoubled, and Souta sounded terrified. "_Help_!"


	9. Chapter Nine

The frenzied knocking continued as Kagome hurried down the stairs – she didn't know what Souta was shouting about, but this wouldn't be the first time something had come to her door to threaten her family. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" she said. "I'll be there in just a moment – hang on!" She took the last three steps in a single jump, turned the key in the lock, and yanked the door open.

There was nothing there.

Kagome shut her eyes, shook her head, and then took a second look. There was plenty of light; the sun was low on the horizon but hadn't quite set, and everything was lit up brilliant orange. Kagome could see the houses and trees across the street, cars in driveways and garbage bags set out by the sidewalk to be collected by the truck in the morning... but no sign of anything remotely threatening. It might have made her feel less frightened, except that there was no sign of her brother, either. There was, in fact, not a single animate thing in sight.

"Souta?" she asked out loud.

"_Kagome_!" a voice hissed, in a loud whisper that sounded as if it were coming from somewhere overhead. "_Shut the door_!"

"What?" Kagome looked up – there was a tree next to the front steps, and Souta was about twelve feet up in it, clinging to the trunk. "_Souta_?" she asked, lowering her own voice... though another quick look around still didn't reveal anything threatening. Was there something here that he could see and she couldn't?

"_Shut the door_!" He waved a hand for emphasis, miming the motion. "_SHUT THE DOOR_!"

"_Why_?" she insisted. "_What's there_?" She looked out over the yard again... and then she saw it.

Unfortunately, it also saw her.

Kagome froze. The sunset light brought out sharp details, but also threw coal-black shadows, and in one such shadow on the eastern side of a pine tree by the driveway, some kind of animal was crouching. As long as it hadn't moved, it had been almost totally invisible, and even now, Kagome couldn't really make out a shape – the thing's matte-black body reflected almost no light at all, and its twiggy legs blended in with the shrubbery. But when it raised its head, she immediately saw a pair of glowing pink eyes... and although there were no pupils visible, she was certain beyond any doubt that it was looking directly at _her_.

She did not scream. If nothing else, Kagome's time in the feudal era had taught her rigid self-control; the only sound she made was the hiss of a quick intake of breath. Then, as smoothly and quietly as possible, she shut the door and locked it, then stepped back and tried to think.

The first order of business was not to panic; panicking invariably accomplished less than nothing. Whatever that creature was – and she was sure it couldn't be anything could – Souta was still out there with it. _This_ Souta might not technically be her real brother, but she couldn't stand here doing nothing. She probably ought to go and get Inuyasha, and maybe the two of them could...

She was halfway through that thought when something slammed into the door from outside. Once again, Kagome kept herself from screaming, but she stumbled backwards, caught her foot on the edge of the area rug and toppled into the closet. Half a dozen coats fell down on top of her as she grabbed at them in the attempt to stop her fall. She dug herself out just in time to see the monster hit the door a second time; the boards bowed inwards from the force of the impact.

"Inuyasha!" she shouted. Her hand went automatically to where her quiver should have been, but of course she had neither it nor her bow. This was _not_ good! "Inuyasha!"

He hadn't waited to be called twice; Kagome hadn't closed her mouth yet when he came down the stairs at a heavy-treaded run. "What's going on?"

"There's a..." Kagome started to reply, but the creature outside finished the statement for her – it rammed the door again, and this time the wood splintered under the blow. Chips went flying, leaving a hole through which the monster inserted a pair of huge mandibles. These opened and closed, clicking and scraping menacingly, but their owner couldn't fit the rest of its head inside. It withdrew its mouth and backed up to try again.

"Get out of the way!" Inuyasha ordered. He vaulted over the banister and reached for the doorknob, only to stop short as he caught sight of the hand he was reaching with. "_Shit_!" he exclaimed, backing up. "They didn't do this to us to get us out of the way – they did it so that thing could kill us!"

Outside, the monster rushed at the door for a fourth time.

"Kitchen!" Kagome grabbed Inuyasha's arm and they ran down the hall – not a moment too soon. The door crumbled, and some kind of giant insect, the size of a horse, shook its grotesque head and stepped over the rubble into the room.

Kagome didn't look back. The kitchen was the place where they were most likely to find something that could be used as a weapon on short notice; large knives, heavy pots and pans, and a baseball bat leaning in a corner – that must have belonged to Souta. Kagome grabbed the bat and tossed it to Inuyasha, then pulled a meat cleaver out of the knife block. If only Sango were here! She was the one who could fight with knives, and throw them with deadly accuracy. In fact, she'd once offered to teach Kagome how... _why_ had Kagome refused?

The monster was coming up the hallway. Its splayed legs barely fit; protruding bits of exoskeleton scraped the paint as it passed. This was no good – if they tried to fight it in here, they'd end up cornered in no time... and would probably destroy half the house while they were at it. "We need more room," she said to Inuyasha. "We have to get it back outside somehow."

"Right," he nodded. "You try to drive it back from this end, I'll try to lure it out from the other." He darted off, cutting through the living room to get back to the front door and leaving Kagome alone with the monster.

Now what? How was she supposed to drive this thing back – it was six times her size! Without a better idea, she settled for pushing the kitchen table over onto its side. Kagome tried not to wonder what her mother was going to say as everything that had been on the table – dishes, papers, envelopes, and a vase of lilac flowers, spilled off onto the floor. She'd hoped that the falling objects would distract or frighten the creature, or that perhaps it would slip on them, but it paid them no mind and kept coming. Kagome pushed the upended table across the kitchen doorway to block it.

"Hey!" Inuyasha's voice shouted from the front hall. "Hey, asshole, back here!"

The monster ignored him. It came right up to the table and then stopped, apparently pondering what to do about this obstacle... but it did not ponder for long. After no more than a second's though, it simply began climbing over it, one segmented leg at a time.

"Hey!" Inuyasha shouted again. "HEY!" If Kagome craned her neck, she could see him, waving his arms and stamping his feet as he tried to get the monster's attention. "Not her! Me! I'm the one you want! Over here!"

It still wasn't working. The first set of legs came over the table, and Kagome took a deep breath, steeled herself, and hacked at one limb with the cleaver.

It felt like punching a wall. Sparks flew from the point of contact, and the impact sent a shock of pain up Kagome's arm, but the blow seemed to have no effect on the monster. Its exoskeleton was rock-hard. Kagome shook her arm and then tried again, this time aiming for the point where two segments of the leg connected. As expected, the shell was weaker there; the cleaver met something soft, and the monster let out an earsplitting hoarse shriek before stumbling backwards over the table. The cleaver dropped to the floor, its blade covered with blue-green ichor.

"Kagome?" Mrs. Higurashi's voice called from upstairs. "Is that the television?"

"Stay where you are, Mom!" Kagome shouted back. She seized another knife and stood up straight, facing the monster. "Get away!" she ordered.

It made a noise that was half hiss and half whistle, like steam escaping from a kettle.

"Get away!" Kagome repeated, shaking her knife. "Go back! Bad youkai! Get away from me!"

"That's right, you don't want her, you want me!" Inuyasha joined in. He pulled the doorknob out of the wreckage on the floor and threw it at the monster, hitting it squarely in the back of the head. It cried out in pain, then turned its neck as best it could in the confined space of the hall and screamed at him.

"Yeah!" he shouted back. "That's right, you son of a bitch, over here!"

"What in the world is going _on_ down there?" asked Mrs. Higurashi, appearing at the top of the stairs in her housecoat... just in time to see the monster awkwardly turn itself around and then rush at Inuyasha. He held up the baseball bat, forcing it between the thing's mandibles, and then both of them vanished outside, ripping the rest of the door off its hinges in the process.

Kagome shoved the table out of the way and ran after them. "Stay here, Mom!" she ordered as she went by.

"Kagome! Kagome!" Souta, still in the tree, called to Kagome as she ran out onto the steps. "Is Mom okay?"

"She's fine," Kagome told him. "Stay there!"

The monster was on the lawn, its clawed feet ripping up the turf as it spun in circles like a dog chasing its tale; Inuyasha had somehow managed to get up on its back, and he was now holding on to the creature's antennae as it furiously tried to dislodge him. "Kagome!" he called.

"I'm coming!" she said. There _had_ to be a better weapon around here somewhere than a pan and a kitchen knife. She looked around, and her eye fell on the garden hose. Would cold water bother this thing?"

"Get the antennae!" Souta shouted. "Hey! The antennae!"

"Antennae!" Inuyasha pulled out a small knife – Kagome couldn't tell where he'd gotten it from – and then held on tight with one hand while the other drove the knife into the place where one antenna joined the head.

The creature screamed again, and scraped at its head with its foremost set of legs – Inuyasha was forced to let go of the antennae and find a handhold on the armor of the neck and thorax. He grimaced, pulled himself upright, and stabbed at the other antenna, prompting a second unearthly shriek.

To Kagome's horror, the cry was answered – another high-pitched call came echoing back from some distance away. With Inuyasha still clinging to its back, the monster, turned and took off down the street, moving at a pace that seemed impossible for something its size.

"I'll be right back!" Kagome shouted to her mother and Souta, and then ran off to follow it.


	10. Chapter Ten

Despite Miroku's apparent optimism, Sango had considerable private doubts about whether they would be able to find Inuyasha and Kagome in the crowd... and she turned out to be right. There were just too many people, all pouring out of the building at once, taking off in every direction and elbowing past each other. Nobody could have found anyone in that, and by the time the crowd had thinned enough to see individual faces as they went by, so few people were left that there really wasn't much point. If Kagome and Inuyasha had been there, they were almost certainly gone by now.

That left them with the problem of what to do now – and it _was_ a problem. If they left the schoolyard, they would probably never find their way back to it, and they had nowhere else to go; they didn't know where they were and had only the vaguest idea how this world worked. In the end, all they could really do was sit there on the freezing cold stone steps, hoping that somehow, help would find _them._

They waited for a very long time. The sun got low and the air cold, and the last few straggling students and teachers headed off for home, leaving Sango and Miroku with nobody in sight except each other. Looking out across the empty parking lot and the broad field beyond, it felt like they were the only human beings left on Earth.

The very last person to leave the school was a short, dark man in orange overalls. He came out the door carrying a mop, and very nearly stepped on them on his way down the stairs. "What are you two doing here?" he demanded, as they moved out of his way.

"Waiting for somebody," said Miroku.

"Yeah?" asked the man. "Well, you can wait somewhere else. Beat it."

"But..." Sango began.

The man clapped his hands. "Come on, get!" he snapped. "Before I call the police! Wait for your damn dealer somewhere else – go!"

There didn't seem to be any arguing with that – they went, and it somehow didn't turn out to be such a bad decision as they'd feared. Only a couple of blocks away, they found a little shop that sold all sorts of bizarre and colourful items, but also some recognizable food. A search of their pockets turned up an assortment of peculiar bills and coins, and they were able to buy a couple of bottles of water and something to eat. The food was awfully rich, and hardly gourmet fare, but neither felt inclined to complain much. They sat down on the curb outside to eat.

And that left them back at 'now what?'

"I guess," Miroku said, "we should see about somewhere to sleep – with all these huge houses around," he gestured with his half-eaten chilidog to the row of dwellings on the other side of the street, "_somebody_ must have room to spare."

"And an evil spirit that needs exorcising," Sango added dryly.

Miroku glanced at her, then decided to pretend he hadn't heard. "And tomorrow we can go back to the school and try again. If they aren't _at_ the school..." he shook his head. "Then I don't know."

Sango didn't know either, so she didn't answer. She took another bite of her own hot dog and watched idly as a giant automobile with a brightly-painted crate on the back pulled up and stopped. The driver climbed out and went into the shop, leaving the engine running.

"Sango?" asked Miroku quietly.

She looked at him. "Yes?"

"Look up." He pointed towards the sky. "Very slowly."

Sango gave him a questioning look, then obeyed; she carefully tilted her head back as far as she could, and then it took her a moment to figure out what she was looking at – the shape that had appeared over the edge of the shop's roof didn't seem to make any visual sense. But then it moved, and Sango stiffened as she realized that some kind of creature was standing on the roof, watching them with bulbous glowing eyes.

Miroku got carefully to his feet. "Let's get inside," he said.

"Naraku's insects aren't here," Sango pointed out. "Can't you..."

He held up his right hand, and Sango was momentarily startled to see that there was no glove or string of beads on it... but there was quite obviously no void, either. She nodded and started to stand.

The monster lunged.

Miroku grabbed Sango's arm and dragged her into the convenience store, only inches ahead of the monster as it landed on its feet right where they'd been sitting. Finding its prey had moved out from under it, it didn't even pause but came smashing right through the front windows, spilling a rack of magazines across the floor. The clerk and the truck driver, who'd been chatting at the cash register, both looked up and shouted in alarm; the clerk with a wordless and rather girly scream, and the trucker with a string of words that were unfamiliar to Sango, but pretty obviously obscene.

There was a push broom leaning against one of the coolers at the back of the store; Miroku seized it and turned to face the monster, brandishing his impromptu weapon like a quarterstaff. The monster snapped at him and he smacked it with the broom, forcing it sideways; away from the clerk and trucker, but towards Sango. She grabbed the top of a set of shelves and vaulted up on top of it.

The clerk screamed again and ran out of a back door.

Unfortunately for Sango, the shelves were not fixed to the floor; the stumbling monster collided with them and they toppled down on top of it. Sango kept her balance and used the momentum of the falling shelves to turn a backflip in midair, landing neatly on her feet on top of the slushie machine. The monster seemed a bit dazed, but no so much so that it didn't immediately start digging itself out from under the mess of fallen shelves and brightly-coloured packages.

The creature resembled a giant and particularly ugly ant... Sango thought fast. Knives and swords weren't any good against insect youkai; their shells were as hard as stone, almost impossible to pierce even if the being didn't have a shikon shard. A properly blessed weapon, like her boomerang, could destroy it at a stroke, but she didn't have that... if they were going to kill this thing without any spiritual aid, the only way Sango knew of was to break its shell and crush it.

Her eyes flicked to the giant truck idling outside. That thing had to be incredibly heavy...

"I've got an idea," she told Miroku. The monster was almost back on its feet, trying shake off a package of twinkies that was caught on a spine on one of its legs. Sango jumped over it, nearly slipped on the spilled magazines, righted herself, and ran for the door.

The monster snapped at her as she sailed over, then turned around, knocking another set of shelves flying, to follow her. Miroku scrambled through the mess, trying not to trip over spilled cans of hair spray, and shoved the broom bristles into the monster's mandibles.

Taking advantage of the extra seconds this had bought her, Sango yanked the truck door open and climbed in. "Push it outside!" she told Miroku, then began muttering to herself as she tried to remember the exact sequence of buttons and levers needed here. "Parking brake... already off... okay, clutch, gearshift goes forward and right, foot on the brake... Miroku!"

"I'm _coming_!" he said.

Just then, however, the clerk emerged from the back of the store, holding dark object that made a loud noise. One of the remaining unbroken windows shattered in a spider-web pattern. There was a second bang, and the monster screamed. It gripped the broom in its jaws and threw Miroku against the slushie machine, then turned to menace the clerk. The man stood firm for a moment, then lost his nerve, dropped his weapon, and ran, the monster right behind him.

It got its head through the back door, but its body wouldn't fit. Three pairs of legs scrabbled for a grip on the smooth tile floor – if it got one, it would push the back wall down. The clerk screamed again.

"Leave him alone! Over here!" Miroku hit the creature with his broom, to no effect. He looked around and spotted the clerk's little weapon, which had fallen on the and was now under the monster's dangling body. If he reached with the broom, he might be able to grab it. Sango started to get out of the truck and go to help, but changed her mind. She had to stay here and be ready if he did manage to get it outside.

Then, from somewhere behind her, came a high-pitched scream. It didn't sound very close, but it certainly wasn't far away enough for comfort – hearing it made Sango's scalp prickle. The sound had an effect on the monster, too; it backed up, nearly knocking Miroku over, turned its head, and gave an answering scream of its own, so loud that Sango had to cover her ears. Whatever was outside replied – and Miroku seized the chance. There was a glass jug labeled 'hot water' on one of the counters. He grabbed it and threw the contents in the monster's face.

It screamed again, thrashing back and forth. Miroku hit it with the broom to make sure it knew who had hurt it, then turned and ran.

This time, it scurried after him. The glow had gone out of its eyes – possibly the boiling water had blinded it – but its antennae were waving and it still seemed to know exactly where he as. He threw the broom aside, leapt onto the hood of the truck, and from there scrambled up on top of the cab. The monster put its front set of legs on the hood to follow him.

Sango stamped on the gas pedal. With a roar, the truck lurched forward, climbing onto the curb. The monster shrieked, scrambled for a grip on the metal, and then there was a horrible juicy 'grunch' as it vanished under the hood. Sango attempted to stop the vehicle before she hit the front of the shop, but didn't quite manage. Although she pushed the brake hard and they stopped with such a jerk that she was thrown painfully against the steering wheel, the front of the truck went right through the last unbroken window. Miroku rolled off the top, bounced off the hood, and fell heavily into a pile of magazines. After a moment he sat up, shaking his head.

"Are you all right?" asked Sango.

"Mostly," he replied. "You?"

Her ribs ached from the collision with the steering wheel, but none of them felt broken – Sango knew very well what broken ribs felt like. "I'm fine."

Another unearthly scream echoed across the parking lot... whatever the monster had been communicating with earlier, it was much, much closer now. Miroku sprang to his feet, and Sango pushed the truck door open and leaned out to look.

In the remains of the convenience store, the trucker got shakily to his feet and lit a cigarette. "Sounds like there's another one," he said helpfully.


	11. Chapter Eleven

Sango never quite knew why – from things Inuyasha and Kagome said, she guessed there was a reason, but they never actually _explained_ – but the second monster was far easier to destroy than the first. There hadn't been a lot of time to prepare for it; listening to the thing's repeated screams, Sango could tell it was approaching at an alarming rate. She let off the parking brake and put her hand on the gearshift. "Get this one behind me," she told Miroku.

"Behind." He nodded, retrieved his broom, and ran to meet the approaching monster. "Over here!" Sango heard him shouting. "Here! This way!"

"Tell me when!" she said, tightening her grip on the lever.

"Not yet," he replied. "Not yet... not yet... wait! Stop! Don't! There's somebody on its back!"

"There's somebody _what_?" A person _riding_ the monster? If the one back there now was anything like the thing they'd just killed, Sango couldn't imagine anything riding it as being good news. She sat very still, gripping the gearshift with whitening knuckles, and waited for him to provide more information. The truck's rearview mirror showed only empty parking lot. Miroku shouted something she couldn't make out, and a male voice replied...

Then she heard two simultaneous cries of alarm, and the entire truck shook as something big ran into the back of it.

"Let go!" Miroku hollered. "You idiot! Let _go_ already!"

Sango gripped the steering wheel as the truck continued to shake. Something fell from above and landed hard on the top of it. What was _happening_ back there? "Miroku?" she asked.

"Now!" he called back. "Sango! Move it backwards _now_!"

She pushed the gearshift back, and the truck's engine roared as she stepped on the gas. The huge vehicle rocked violently back and forth, and Sango could hear sloshes and shattering from inside the crate... then there was a bump, and a second awful pulpy snapping sound as the second monster was dragged under the wheels. Once its yelps of pain had been silenced, stopped the truck, shut off the ignition, and set the parking brake.

Now what? The sudden silence was eerie, and she half-expected it to be broken by further screams as a dozen more of the giant insects converged on them... but there was nothing. After thirty seconds or so had passed, she opened the door and looked out.

"Miroku?" she asked. "Are you okay?" Where was he?

"I'm fine," his voice replied, and he crawled out from underneath the truck. His purple tank top was stained with oil. "We got it," he added. "It's dead. I don't think there are any more coming."

Sango got down from the cab and helped him up. "Where's the person who was riding it?"

"Up here," said the boy Miroku had been shouting at... and this time, Sango recognized his voice. She looked up and sure enough, there was a very familiar crouched silhouette, perching on top of the truck.

"Inuyasha!" she exclaimed happily.

He jumped down, and landed rather gracelessly but on his feet on the pavement. For a moment Sango thought his clumsiness must mean he was hurt, but then she realized that his hair was black. But... she glanced at the sky – there was a slim but very bright crescent moon hanging just above the Western horizon. Inuyasha shouldn't be human tonight. "Why are you..." she began.

"I don't know," he cut her off. "Where's Kagome?"

"I'm here!" they heard her call, and she came jogging up from behind the truck. Her hair was sticking to her neck from sweat, and she was panting as if she'd run a very long way, but she looked unhurt. "Sango!" she said. "And Miroku! Are you both okay?"

"We're fine, we're both fine," Sango assured her – she glanced at Miroku to make sure she wasn't telling an unintentional lie, but he nodded. "How about you two?"

"I think we're okay," Kagome said, but then she appeared to change her mind. "Inuyasha!" She stepped past Sango to take a closer look at him. "You're bleeding!"

Sango turned around; one sleeve of Inuyasha's oversized red shirt was torn, and the edges of the rip were stained with dark liquid. He quickly grabbed the place, covering it with his hand. "I'm fine," he said defensively. "It's not deep. The thing just slashed me with a leg is all."

"Are you sure?" asked Kagome. "You won't be able to heal like you usually can."

"Yes," he said. "I'm sure."

In the wreckage of the convenience store, the trucker was leaning on a counter and smoking his cigarette with a rather distant expression on his face. The clerk had dragged himself out of the back room, and was now holding on to a soda cooler to keep his balance while he looked around in horror.

"You all right, mate?" the trucker asked him. "Here, have a smoke."

"Oh, god," the clerk moaned, covering his face. "Oh, god, I've got to be dreaming. I have to call the cops. Yeah, I have to call the cops." He stumbled over to the front counter and reached for the telephone. "They're never going to believe this! I'll have to show them the..." he stopped in mid-sentence with the phone receiver halfway to his mouth, and stared with huge eyes at the scene outside. "Where did it go?"

"Where did what go?" Miroku and Kagome asked in unison.

Sango followed the man's gaze – he was looking at the front of the truck, but when she stepped up to see for herself, there was nothing strange there... and that, she realized, was entirely the problem. There _should_ have been the crushed carcass of an enormous ant-like youkai, but it had vanished utterly. Not even any blood remained to mark where it had been.

"It's gone," she said aloud. Youkai might not be confined by the same physical rules as humans, but most of the time they at least had the decency to leave a body.

"They're both gone," the trucker nodded. "The damn things just melted right after you squashed them. Nice of them not to leave their guts all over my grille." He exhaled a cloud of smoke, then stood up straight. "Hey, kids, listen – I don't know what your folks must've paid for those Kung Fu lessons, but I'd say it was well worth ever goddamn penny. Let me see what I've got here." He pulled out his wallet and started flipping through a wad of gray-green bills. "I guess money's not much for kids who just saved my ass... if you can think of something better, I'll be all ears."

"I have to call the cops," the clerk repeated, but made no move to do so. He sounded as if he were hanging on desperately to the single coherent idea in a sea of utter nonsense. "Call the cops... yeah, I should..."

"And tell 'em what?" asked the trucker. "Disappearing bug monsters trashed your store?"

"Well... no..." the clerk said miserably. "But... what do you want me to do, just clean up and pretend it never happened? I mean... look at this place!"

"We can help clean up," Kagome offered.

"We didn't mean to make such a mess," Sango agreed. "It sort of couldn't be helped. We'd be happy to..."

"Oh, no, you don't," said the trucker. He turned to the clerk. "Fine, you tell the cops, but you'd better have a story to tell them when they get here, because I don't want you making any trouble for those kids. Not after they're all that stopped that thing from chewing up your sorry ass. Understand?"

The clerk nodded.

"Good." The trucker turned and beckoned to the group outside. "Come here."

"Why?" asked Inuyasha suspiciously.

"So I can give you some money." The trucker stepped over a fallen shelf and out through one of the shattered windows to hand Miroku a wad of cash. "You kids go see some movies or something, have a few drinks on me. You handled the bugs – we'll worry about the cleanup. Better head on home before your parents wonder where you've got to."

"We can't take that," Kagome protested.

"The hell you can't," he replied. "Now go on, get out of here. It's a school night." And with that, he turned around and went back inside to take the telephone away from the clerk, who was trying to talk to somebody but utterly unable to put a coherent sentence together. "Hello?" he said. "Sorry about my friend here. There's been an accident..."

Kagome looked around at her friends. "Well," she said, "I think my house is this way."

The group of four set off across the parking lot.

"How long have you two been here?" Kagome asked Sango and Miroku. "I guess it's been about four or five hours for Inuyasha and I."

"That sounds about right," said Miroku, and then narrated what he and Sango had been doing since they'd first arrived. In return, Kagome explained what had happened to herself and Inuyasha.

"But Kagome," said Sango. "You told us once people never see youkai in your time."

"We're not in my time," Kagome replied. "I don't know where we are... I think it's supposed to _look_ like my time, but there are a lot of things wrong."

"Not that it matters," said Inuyasha. "I really don't think that Meimou woman cares if it fools us or not. She just sent us here so that those things could finish us off."

Sango nodded slowly... that made reasonable sense. Here they had no weapons ready to hand, they were in an unfamiliar environment, Inuyasha was human and Miroku didn't have his void... did Miroku and Kagome still have their spiritual powers, she wondered, or were those gone, too? Either way, the situation didn't look very good, and there were all kinds of other thing to consider. "If she means to kill us, then she probably won't give up after just one attempt," Sango said.

"And she'll probably send something nastier next time," Miroku agreed. "Or more of them."

"We can't let ourselves be caught unprepared a second time," said Sango.

Kagome nodded. "Well, everything will probably be closing by now," she sighed. "Does anybody have any money besides what he gave us?"

"Miroku and I have a little," Sango replied. "We spent some of it on supper, though."

"I haven't looked." Inuyasha dug into his pockets to find out.

"We're going to need it," said Kagome. "Last time I tried to buy a bow and arrows from a shop, it cost five times what I expected, and I doubt the stuff's available here to make one. We'll have to figure _something_ out, though. The next time I face one of those things, I want to be armed with something a bit more deadly than a frying pan."

"Absolutely agreed," said Miroku.


	12. Chapter Twelve

Following the monster to the convenience store hadn't been hard – even when it was out of sight, Kagome had still been able to hear its screaming. People in the houses she was passing would open their doors and peek out to see what was going on, but by the time they did, the giant insect was invariably long gone. To Kagome's surprise, nobody seemed to worry over-much about it; people came outside, looked around, shrugged, and then shut the door again, apparently convinced that whatever was letting out bloodcurdling shrieks in the twilight couldn't be anything _that_ bad.

Finding her way home was rather more difficult. There hadn't really been time to look for landmarks, so Kagome had only vague mental pictures of a hamburger place, a church with a playground, and a brick wall covered with posters and graffiti. It took a few wrong turns and quite a bit of arguing with Inuyasha, but eventually they did find their way, and arrived back at her house... to find it surrounded by police cars.

Kagome's heart sank – _now_ what? Her mother was loading suitcases into the back of the SUV, while Souta, with Buyo slung limply over his shoulders, talked excitedly to a policeman. The officer was writing down what Souta was telling him, but looked extremely skeptical of it.

"Hi, Kagome!" Souta waved. "Hi, Sango! Hello, Kagome and Sango's boyfriends! Is this cool or what? Look – _three_ police cars! I didn't know they'd send _three_ just for a broken door!"

'Cool' was not the word Kagome would have used, and it evidently didn't please the policeman, either. He flipped a page over on his notepad, mumbled a thanks, told Souta that no, he could _not_ sit in the police car and beep the horn, and then came up to Kagome and her friends. She took an involuntary step back, and bumped into Inuyasha, whose lips were parted in a semi-snarl to match the policeman's rather fierce demeanor. Oh, dear.

"Which one of you is Kagome Higurashi?" the officer wanted to know.

"That's me," Kagome said quickly, stepping forward again. She glanced back at her friends, silently telling them that she would handle this herself... but she wasn't sure exactly what it was she was going to have to handle. What kinds of questions did policemen ask following a break-in by a giant demon ant? She'd probably been very lucky, she realized, that she'd never had to talk to the police about such a thing before.

"Miss Higurashi," said the policeman, "I'm Officer George Hong. Who are your friends?"

"Well, this is Sango," said Kagome, "and Miroku, and Inuyasha. They're... friends of mine from school," she added warily.

Officer Hong nodded. "Your brother says..." he paused to flip back through his notebook and make sure he got it right. "He says that a thief broke into your house with an axe, but you and a friend chased him out with..." he turned a page. "A baseball bat and a frying pan?" He looked at Kagome, one eyebrow raised – clearly, he found Souta's version of events highly unlikely.

But disagreeing with it would probably lead to great trouble. "Yes," said Kagome. "Yes, that's what happened. Right, Inuyasha?"

Inuyasha rolled his eyes, but nodded. "Sure," he said. "That's what happened."

Still looking skeptical, Officer Hong made a note. "Can you describe the man?"

"He was wearing a mask," said Kagome – that seemed like the safest answer. "A big rubber Hallowe'en mast. We couldn't see his face."

The policeman wrote that down, too. "And you chased him away. Where did he go?"

"He got into a car," said Kagome. "We ran after him as far as we could, but we lost him somewhere up that way." She pointed. "Then when we were on our way home, we met Sango and Miroku at the convenience store, and stopped to talk to them."

"They didn't see the thief?"

"No," said Kagome. Sango and Miroku took the hint and shook their heads.

"Uh-huh," said Officer Hong. "Your mother and brother claim nothing was stolen?"

"Nothing at all, officer," Mrs. Higurashi spoke up. "Kagome and her friend chased him right out before he got further than the front hall. All our valuables are accounted for. I'm sure we'll be all right."

"Very well," sighed Officer Hong, putting his pen back in his pocket. "We'll keep a watch on the place for you tonight to make sure nobody _else_ comes in and steals anything. I assume you have insurance?"

"Of course," Mrs. Higurashi nodded. "We'll have that door replaced first thing tomorrow morning, and it'll be like the whole thing never happened." She shut the back of the SUV and brushed her hands off. "Kagome," she added, "we're going to a motel for the night – don't want to sleep in a house with no front door. Do you want to bring your friends? I'm afraid we really can't afford to let them sleep over, but you can certainly still watch a movie or play some board games, and I believe the motel has a swimming pool."

That did sound like a good idea... if only because Kagome's friends had nowhere else to go for now. "Okay," she said, "that sounds like fun. Right?" She looked back at the others. Once again, they knew where they were supposed to agree.

"Wonderful," Mrs. Higurashi said cheerfully. "We'll just have to order another pizza."

Officer Hong put a hand on Kagome's shoulder. "Uh, miss," he said. "Your mother..."

"She's always like that," Kagome assured him.

"About _everything_," Inuyasha agreed.

"Oh."

Mrs. Higurashi got into the vehicle and started up the engine. "Pile in, kids," she said, opening the passenger-side door for Souta. "I do like meeting your friends, Kagome. Oh, and Sango, it's always lovely to see you."

"You also," Sango replied awkwardly, climbing into the back seat. Kagome made a mental note – in this world, her mother knew Sango but not Inuyasha. That made about as much sense as anything else that had happened this evening.

The SUV that had seemed _huge_ when there'd only been two or three people in it was suddenly much tighter quarters when it had to fit six, but there was no lack of seat belts. Inuyasha, who'd ridden in cars before, had a good idea of how the belts worked, and Sango seemed to know as well, but Miroku needed Kagome to show him.

"Hey," Souta said from the front seat. "I know who _you_ are! Your name's Miroku, right? You play basketball – it was in Kagome's school paper! I'm Souta, Kagome's little brother. I didn't know she knew you. Want to shoot some hoops later?" he asked eagerly.

"Um," said Miroku.

Inuyasha saved him from having to answer. "Hey," he interrupted. "How did you know it would confuse that thing if I got its antennae?"

"_Them!_," Souta replied.

Kagome blinked, then looked at the others to see if it had made sense to anybody else – apparently it hadn't. They were all looking at Souta with blank faces.

"_Them!_," he repeated. "_Them!_ The giant ant movie! You guys have never seen _Them!_?"

They shook their heads.

"Mom," Souta sat down and put his own seatbelt on, "we have to rent _Them!_, okay?"

"Sure, honey," said Mrs. Higurashi. "Everybody buckled in?"

"Yes, Mom," said Kagome.

"Off we go, then," Mrs. Higurashi said merrily, and put the vehicle into gear.

Their first stop was the pizza place. Kagome had forgotten that they were expecting a pizza delivery, but Souta explained that the first pair of pies had arrived just before the police cars, so Mrs. Higurashi had paid for them and put them in the back of the SUV with a blanket over them to keep them hot. While they waited for a third – another vegetarian special, which Sango and Miroku selected on the basis of being able to recognize more than half of the listed toppings – to cook, Souta ran across the street to the video store and returned with a DVD box. The cover bore a copy of an old-fashioned poster for a movie that did, indeed, appear to be about very large ants. He described the plot to Kagome and her friends in detail while Mrs. Higurashi paid for the pizza.

The rest of the evening was actually quite unremarkable, although the very normalcy of it made it seem a bit surreal. After checking in to the motel and explaining that Sango, Miroku, and Inuyasha wouldn't be staying, they made microwave popcorn and passed out cans of coke and pizza slices, and sat down to watch the film. Sango and Miroku found the television rather intriguing at first, but the novelty seemed to wear off quickly, and after that they just settled down and watched.

Kagome attempted to do the same, but really couldn't. Every time she tried to start paying attention to the movie, she'd find herself looking around at the others and shivering a bit. Having got over her initial joy at seeing them safe, there really was something very odd about casually sitting around and watching a monster movie with Sango, Miroku, and a human Inuyasha.

"See?" Souta asked excitedly, pointing at the screen. "He said it, right there! Get the antennae!"

Other than the antenna comment, however, the film was rather unhelpful on how they were going to deal with any more giant ants... the methods used by the characters assumed the input of scientists and the resources of the United States military. Most of what was going on made no sense at all to Sango and Miroku, and not much more to Inuyasha; after about fifteen minutes, he got fed-up with the slow-movie story and spent the next hour sprawled on the bed, flipping through a magazine.

Finally, the credits rolled, and Mrs. Higurashi stood up and stretched. "I'm sorry to break up the party, kids," she said, "but it's almost ten. Sango, Miroku, Inuyasha, do you need rides home, or are you going to call your parents?"

"We'll figure something out," said Kagome, and motioned for her friends to gather around so that they could talk privately.

"What now?" asked Miroku.

"I've been thinking about that," said Kagome. They were still acting like she was somehow automatically in charge, she noted... but now there was a bit more reason to, since she for once had more idea than anybody else about how the world they were in worked. "I think you should all just go home for the night. All of us except Inuyasha showed up at the school, and people seem to think we belong here... so you should have homes to go to, and tomorrow you can catch the bus back to school. We'll meet up on the front steps there, and then we can figure out how to deal with these monsters.

"But we don't know where 'home' here _is_," Sango pointed out.

"I know," said Kagome. "I know... but I think I know how we can figure it out."


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Kagome took a look around – her mother was standing in the corner, talking quietly on a cellular phone, and Souta was absorbed in a video game he'd set up after Mrs. Higurashi took the DVD out of the player. Neither appeared to be paying any attention to what Kagome and her friends were saying or doing, but even so she leaned in close to them and spoke in a whisper.

"Okay, Sango," she said, "you told me you were in the middle of a driving lesson when you got here?"

"That's right," Sango nodded.

"That means you must have a learner's permit," said Kagome. "That'll have your full name and address on it, and if we have those, we can look up your phone number. Miroku, Inuyasha," she looked at the boys, "check your wallets, too."

The subsequent search did indeed turn up one learner's permit – Sango's – and one actual driver's license – Miroku's – both of which for some unfathomable reason listed home addresses in Illinois. Even more bizarre, Inuyasha was carrying a United States passport that gave his hometown as Los Angeles, California. Kagome had seen enough American movies to have a pretty good idea that wherever they were, it was _not_ California, but Illinois seemed as likely as anywhere else, and if they weren't in Japan, that might explain a few things.

Looking in the phone book for 'Houshi' and 'Taijiya' quickly turned up addresses that matched, and Kagome felt quite pleased with herself for having solved one problem, even if her solution had brought their attention to several more mysteries.

"Here," she handed the receiver of the motel room phone to Sango. "Just press the numbers in sequence."

Sango accepted it, held it to her ear as Kagome had directed, and dialed. There was silence while it rang, and then Sango almost dropped the receiver. Kagome could hear somebody on the other end asking, "hello? _Hello?_" and hoped whoever it was didn't hang up before Sango caught it.

She appeared to finally figure out how to hold it, then licked her lips and said in a very small voice, "hello? _Kohaku_? Is that _you_?"

Kagome swallowed, wondering how she could have been dumb enough not to think of that. _Her_ family was here in some form, as was at least part of Inuyasha's, and both of them had found this somewhat disturbing. Why shouldn't Sango's and Miroku's families be present also... and their presence made all the worse by the fact that both were supposed to be _dead_?

She didn't hear Kohaku's reply to the question, but whatever it was, Sango went very pale.

"Dad?" she asked. "Dad's there?" There was a pause. "Please. Yes, yes, I'm fine. Yes. Please get Dad."

There followed a lengthy silence while Kohaku went to get their father. Sango's eyes looked very liquid, but when Kagome opened her mouth to say something reassuring, a fierce look from her friend silenced her. Sango was apparently determined to see this through, no matter what sorts of emotional torture it might entail.

Finally, a voice on the other end said something. Sango took a deep breath. "Hello," she said. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong at all. I... um... need to be taken home." Another pause. "I forgot. I'm... um... with Kagome. Her house was broken into, so we had to leave. I'm at..." she looked at Kagome for help – Kagome held up a business card with the motel's name and address on it, and Sango read off the information. There was a reply. "I will," promised Sango. "Yes. Goodbye."

She sat still until the phone began beeping to signify that it had been off the hook too long, then, apparently interpreting this as the signal that the call was officially over, handed the receiver back to Kagome and covered her face.

"Sango?" Kagome asked.

Sango just shook her head, and Kagome decided that the only diplomatic thing to do would be to pull a Kleenex out of the box on the night table and offer it to her. This Sango accepted gratefully, and Kagome passed the phone on to Miroku.

He made his own call home, and had to sit and listen while his own father gave him a lengthy lecture on the evils of not calling when one changes one's plans for the evening. Miroku took this with much more grace than Sango, passed on the information about where to find him, and set the phone carefully back in the cradle. Sango remained hunched over, looking very much like she was trying hard not to cry.

Now for the hard part. "Okay," said Kagome. "Inuyasha, since it seems you don't have other relatives nearby, I guess we'll have to try again to find your..."

Inuyasha shook his head. "No," he interrupted.

"You can't stay here," said Kagome. "Mom said we couldn't afford it."

"But I'm not going near anywhere that has Sesshoumaru in it, not as long as I'm stuck like this." Inuyasha stood up. "Don't worry about me. I'll find somewhere to sleep. I can take care of myself." He turned and walked out onto the motel balcony.

Kagome ran after him. "Usually you can," she said. "But we're on another continent in another _universe_, and you're..."

"Yes. I am," he snarled. "And you know what? I've been this way one night a month for my entire life, and nothing's managed to kill me yet! I don't need you to look after me."

"I didn't say you did," said Kagome patiently. "I just meant that we don't know what's out there."

"And we do normally?" he sneered. "You're always telling me I'm safer in your time on New Moon than I am in mine."

"But this isn't my time!"

"Close enough," said Inuyasha. He climbed up on to the railing and for a horrifying moment Kagome thought he was going to try to jump down into the parking lot – doing so probably wouldn't _kill_ him, but he could nevertheless get seriously hurt. What he did instead, however, really wasn't much better; he stood up, balancing like a cat, and pulled himself up onto the motel roof.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome grabbed the railing and tried to follow him, but quickly realized what a bad idea this would be – even in his human form, he still had a nearly supernatural sense of balance that she just couldn't match. Instead, she just gripped the metal in both hands, shut her eyes, and gritted her teeth in frustration. What was _wrong_ with him? He _knew_ this wasn't her time, and they'd already met monsters here! What was he _thinking_ to just run off like that?

The sound of a car pulling into the lot made her look up – a black sedan chose a parking space and stopped, and a man got out of it and went into the motel office. Kagome sighed and went back indoors.

"I think one of your fathers just got here," she said to Miroku and Sango, still sitting on the bed.

Miroku cast a wary glance at Sango, who was sitting up straight now, but with a carefully expressionless face. "I don't know about..." he began.

"I'm fine." Sango stood up. "I'm just fine. Let's go."

The motel's check-in desk was in a little office on the first floor and doubled as a souvenir shop, selling t-shirts, snowglobes, and all sorts of other cheap and ugly items with the name of the city on them. The man from the black car was standing and drumming his fingers on the desk as he fingered idly through a display of keychains. He looked up when Kagome and her friends opened the door, but the initially impatient expression on his face melted into concern when he saw them.

"Sango?" he asked.

Kagome turned around; Sango was standing frozen, staring in outright horror. For a moment she didn't even seem able to blink, then she came suddenly back to life and immediately teared up again.

"Excuse me," she said, and ducked back outside.

Miroku ran after her. Kagome paused to spare a glance for Mr. Taijiya. "Just a moment," she told him, and then followed her friends.

Sango hadn't gone far; she was sitting in the porch swing outside the office door, head in her hands.

"Sango?" Kagome sat down next to her and put a hand on her friend's shoulder.

But Sango shook her head. "I can't," she moaned. "I can't just go with him and act like nothing's wrong – that's my _father_!"

"No, it's not." Miroku knelt down in front of her and pulled her hands away from her face, forcing her to look at him. "That is _not_ your father. You just have to remember that. Keep reminding yourself until you believe it."

"Let's see you tell me that when _your_ dead father arrives!" she snapped. "I don't think you'll be so calm _then_!"

Miroku didn't react. "A month or two before I met Kagome," he said, "a general hired me to drive some ghosts out of the castle his troops were trying to defend."

"Oh, _really_?" Sango's voice dripped sarcasm.

"Sometimes there really _are_ demons in places!" he said defensively. "There were in the castle – the general thought the place must be _very_ haunted, because his men had been seeing dead friends and relatives all over the place, but it was actually just a doppelganger. Do you know what that is?"

"I don't," said Kagome, though she assumed – correctly, as it turned out – that Sango did.

"It's a youkai," Miroku explained. "They're pretty harmless – they just like to make mischief. But they can read your mind a bit, and take the shape of any person they see there, so they're often mistaken for ghosts, though their auras are quite different. But when I confronted the one in the castle, the one I'd been hired to get rid of, it took the shape of my father."

Sango raised her eyes to look at him, but didn't speak.

"It was two or three days before I could make myself destroy it," said Miroku. "But in the end, I did. I can't say I enjoyed it, but I got it done, I just had to convince myself that it wasn't real. If I could do that, you can do this."

She nodded, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. Kagome was prepared to sit with her a few minutes longer – or go inside and stall to Mr. Taijiya if need be – but Sango didn't seem to need either. She took a deep breath, then got up, went back indoors, and made herself smile.

"Hello, Dad," she said.

Her father smiled back, but looked a bit nervous about it. "Hello, Sango. Are you sure nothing's wrong? You sounded so strange on the phone, and then..."

"I'm all right," said Sango. "I just left something outside."

"Are you sure?" Mr. Taijiya's brown furrowed with concern.

"Yes," said Sango. "I'm sure."


	14. Chapter Fourteen

As Sango climbed into her father's sedan, a beat-up little Japanese car pulled into a spot next to it and the horn blared. Kagome automatically turned to Miroku, but then realized that this was premature. They didn't _know_ that was his father here to get him. It could be anybody.

Then the driver's side window rolled down, and the man in the driver's seat leaned out and called, "Miroku! You coming?"

"Yes," said Miroku. He glanced at Sango, who nodded to him as she shut the sedan door, then at Kagome, and then squared his shoulders as if about to face a mortal enemy and began walking towards his father's car.

"See you at school tomorrow!" Kagome said, for the sake of appearances. She waved to him.

He raised a hand in reply. "See you."

Miroku's father reached over to unlock the passenger-side door for him. "Where's your knapsack?" he wanted to know.

"My what?" Miroku asked.

"Your bag, your backpack," Mr. Houshi clarified. "Where is it?"

Miroku paused to think. "I must have left it at school."

"How did you manage _that_?" his father asked, as Miroku did up his seatbelt – much less clumsily this time.

"I just forgot about it," said Miroku.

Mr. Houshi sighed. "Well, I hope your iPod wasn't in there, because if it was, I'm not replacing it."

"Sorry." Miroku pulled the door shut.

Thirty seconds later, both cars were out of sight, leaving Kagome standing on the porch and wondering, suddenly, whether this had _really_ been any kind of a good idea. Now that they'd all split up, any number of things might happen to keep them from getting back together again, and with giant bug-like monsters running around, sticking together might turn out to be a life-or-death matter. But there was nothing she could do about it now, so she just turned and started climbing the steps to the second floor, head bent with worry as she went.

Could they really trust their 'families' here? So far none of the _people_ seemed to be hostile to them – except for the police officer, who'd had every reason to be annoyed with the vague and improbable story they'd told him – but how sure could they be? Kagome should have asked Inuyasha exactly what had happened during his encounter with his brother. Maybe there'd been more to his refusal to go back than just the fact of it being Sesshoumaru. It did seem strange that he was more afraid of _that_ than of whatever unknowns might be lurking in this new world. Perhaps it had something to do with him being human; Inuyasha was always on edge during the new moon nights... but usually that made him _more_ cautious, not less.

Either way, the longer she thought about it, the more foolish she felt, and by the time she opened the motel room door, she wanted to curl up in shame at her own foolishness. This was absurd! They should have tried to find out more about this world before they'd split up, placing their lives in the hands of people they knew nothing about! Thus far they'd seen no evidence that their 'families' weren't just _pretending_ all this was normal. Just because nobody who'd had the opportunity had threatened them _yet_ didn't mean that nobody was...

"Stick 'em up!" ordered Souta.

Kagome stopped, holding the door open and looking directly up the barrel of a blue plastic water pistol. At the other end of it, Souta was glaring at her in probably purposeful imitation of a character from a cop show. Maybe he was just playing with her...

"Come on, hands up!" he ordered, shaking the pistol. "I filled it with vinegar! Unless you want a faceful, _let's see some hands_!"

She obligingly raised her hands.

"Good!" said Souta. He stepped towards her, forcing her to back up onto the balcony if she didn't want to be poked in the face. The door swung shut behind them. "Now," he said, "_who_ are you, and _what_ did you do with my sister?"

Kagome felt her stomach drop – maybe the people in this world didn't even _need_ to actually be part of whatever Meimou's scheme was in order to be dangerous to them. If they just sensed that something wasn't right, that might well be enough. The best thing to do, she decided, would be to feign ignorance. "What kind of a question is that?" she asked.

"It's a _good_ question," said Souta. "Don't give me the old big-eyed innocent routine – I _heard_ you guys talking. Since when do you need to look up Sango's phone number? You've been friends with her since the third grade."

"You were eavesdropping?" asked Kagome. The Souta in _her_ universe was never so rude! "I thought you were playing a video game."

"You think I can't play and listen at the same time?" he asked smugly. "I can win that game in my _sleep_. Now, speak up! The _real_ Kagome would be hiding under the bed if giant ants ever invaded our house! You're an alien, aren't you? You guys are all aliens and you're taking over human bodies!" It was difficult to tell if he thought this was terrifying or marvelous. "What do you want on Earth?"

This was so ridiculous that Kagome very nearly did get a shot of vinegar in the face before she figured out any sort of response. "Don't be silly, Souta," she said, pushing the barrel of the water pistol aside. "And you'd better not actually shoot me. If there _is_ vinegar in there, you could really hurt somebody!"

This example of classic big sister-ness seemed to weaken Souta's resolve a little, but then he stook up straight and pointed his weapon at her face again. "Kagome's _seen_ _Them!_," he said. "And what are giant ants doing here _anyway_, huh?"

Now _that_, Kagome didn't have an answer for. For a moment she tried to think of one, but then she gave up. After all, there was really only one way to find _out_ if anybody here were likely to hurt them. And after she and her friends had destroyed _two_ giant ants, surely she could handle one nine-year-old boy with a water gun full of vinegar.

"Well?" asked Souta. "You've got _five seconds_, lady. Four... three..."

"The giant ants are here to kill us," said Kagome.

Souta's eyes widened. "Really? So I'm _right_? And the ants are aliens, too?"

"No," said Kagome. "No... they're from another universe. I'm Kagome from a parallel universe. Somebody sent my friends and I here so we wouldn't have our powers." Some part of her couldn't believe she was saying this. Talking about youkai and time-travel as perfectly normal parts of everyday life was second nature to her... but parallel universes?

"Powers?" Souta lowered the pistol and his eyes got even bigger. "So you're _superheros_? Can you fly?" he asked eagerly.

"Of course not," said Kagome.

"Oh." Her brother's face fell. Evidently, Kagome couldn't be much of a superhero if she couldn't fly. "Okay, then, lemme guess: the bad guys opened a portal to this universe and sent their insectoid minions through to conquer it, so then _you_ guys had to occupy the bodies of your counterparts in order to defeat the forces of darkness."

Kagome blinked.

"I watch a lot of movies," said Souta, by way of explanation, "so I know how this works."

So far, so good, thought Kagome. Something else occurred to her, and she asked, "there aren't a lot of giant ants in this universe, are there?"

"Not that I ever saw," said Souta. "One of my teachers said they couldn't exist 'cause their exoskeletons would be too heavy. Next time, I gotta get _pictures_!"

The monsters weren't locals, then. Somebody was sending them in. "About that, Souta," said Kagome. "Next time – there probably _is_ going to be a next time, and they'll probably send something worse. So if you'd like to help us..."

"Yeah!" Souta exclaimed. "What can I do? Anything!"

"We're going to need some weapons," said Kagome.

Souta suddenly looked less than enthusiastic. "You mean like guns? I dunno where to get guns."

"Not guns," said Kagome. Sango and Miroku had described a man shooting at one of the ants, and it apparently had only angered the creature. "I mean... a bow and arrows, a sword, maybe some knives..." what about Miroku? He was a monk – he probably hadn't had any sort of weapons training at all.

"Ohh." Souta relaxed. "That'll be no problem; we can get _those_ at the mall. You guys are gonna skip school tomorrow, huh? Okay, I can get a bus. I'll meet you at 8:30 by the convenience store. Don't worry about anything – I'll be happy to be your personal guide to this universe!"

The motel room door opened again, and Mrs. Higurashi looked out. "You coming to bed, kids?" she asked. "It's a school night."

"Actually, Mom," said Souta, "Kagome and me are gonna skip school so she and her friends can get some stuff in case those giant ants come back. Is that okay?"

"Oh? I suppose," said Mrs. Higurashi pleasantly. "I'll call in sick for you, if you like."

"Yes, please," said Kagome. What had she been worried about? If Sango's and Miroku's families would be as close to their normal selves as her mother was, they were all going to be just fine.

But would they be? She found herself pondering that as she put her pajamas on. Her mother might be acting normal, but Souta, though no longer exhibiting the sullen behavior that had startled her earlier, was nevertheless a bit 'off' somehow. Even knowing she wasn't really in her own time, it was a bit unnerving. Would Sango's and Miroku's fathers be like that, too? And would it be better or worse for them – especially Sango – if they were?

Kagome had no idea.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

The doppelganger in the garrison had taken the shape of the father Miroku remembered – a man who'd had children young because he didn't know how long he had to live, and hadn't been out of his twenties when the void finally collapsed and took him with it. Miroku had been expecting this strange place's version of his father to look similar, but the man who arrived to pick him up turned out to be older and greyer, with a different haircut and a short, carefully trimmed beard, but still recognizable. So this, Miroku thought, was what his father would look like now if he'd lived to see his son grow up.

"I don't think I've heard you mention a 'Kagome' before," said Professor Houshi as he started up the car. His tone was conversational, but with a slightly wary note. "How long have you known her?"

"A few months," replied Miroku, figuring that honesty was probably the best policy unless he absolutely _had_ to lie. Telling the truth meant not having to remember what he'd lied about.

Professor Houshi – that was how he'd answered the telephone – nodded. "Did you have fun this evening?"

"I suppose," said Miroku. Feeling a further description was expected of him, he added, "we had pizza, and we watched a movie." His tongue stumbled over the unfamiliar words."

"What movie?" Professor Houshi was curious.

"_Them!_," said Miroku. Why so many questions?

"The old giant ant movie? Or is there a remake?"

"The old one." Souta had described it as such.

"I've never seen that." Professor Houshi sounded interested. "How was it?"

"Interesting," said Miroku. He really hadn't understood much of it beyond that there were very large ants attacking people.

Professor Houshi glanced at Miroku in the little mirror mounted on the inside of the car's front window. "Are you all right, Miroku? You're awfully quiet. All you did was forget to phone, you know. You aren't in _that_ much trouble."

"I'm fine," said Miroku, making a mental note – he was apparently expected to be more talkative.

It didn't seem to be a very long trip home. After a few minutes, the car turned a corner and approached a complex of two-story buildings, divided into sections with a door and windows in each, and pulled to a stop in front of number sixteen. Professor Houshi turned off the engine and opened the door.

"I'm probably going to be in the den most of the night," he said, getting out of the car. "I've got a lot of work to finish up before my colloquium."

"Right," said Miroku.

Beyond the door marked '16' was a suite of small, dingy rooms, of which a kitchen and a sitting room of some kind were visible from the front door... and both were a mess. The dwelling was stuffed to the gills with all manner of Buddhist paraphernalia, ranging from small statues to dishes of prayer beads to posters of temples to a few items Miroku couldn't begin to identify. All of this was thrown together in a way that suggested a disinterested collector far more than someone with any actual respect for the stuff, and looking at it gave Miroku a powerful urge to start cleaning up immediately. Such things should _not_ be sitting in haphazard heaps like that!

But he resisted, because the small part of him that wasn't horrified told him that he had no idea how his actions might be interpreted. For all he knew, this could be some kind of trap, to trick him into revealing that he didn't belong here.

One thing was certain, though – his _real_ father would never have treated these items like that... or tolerated half such a mess; the rooms were full to bursting with furniture and clutter. The motel room, with its oversized furniture and decorated walls and floors, had seemed stuffy and claustrophobic to Miroku, but this was a hundred times worse.

"Miroku?" Professor Houshi asked.

Miroku blinked, and realized she was standing in his father's way. He quickly stepped aside. Professor Houshi passed him, then paused in the act of pulling off his jacket to look back.

"Are you sure you're all right, Miroku?" he asked.

"Yes," said Miroku. "I'm just fine."

"If you say so," Professor Houshi said warily.

While his father settled down to work, Miroku explored the house a bit. His own room wasn't hard to identify – it had a license plate on the door, with his name on it. Looking inside, he was relieved to find that the room was considerably cleaner than the rest of the house, and what clutter it had was rather less sacrilegious. The walls were decorated with a mix of images – landscapes and portraits both, the latter divided about evenly between pictures of tall men holding orange balls like the one that had given Miroku his nosebleed, and pale-haired women in not much clothing.

Well, there were much worse things he could have had to look at. Even if the women's somewhat predatory expressions were a bit, they were all very pretty, and Miroku was the last person to have anything against a bit of cleavage. He sat down on the bed...

... then stood up again, as something under the bedclothes crinkled. Curious, Miroku reached under them and pulled out a magazine. When he turned it over, the front cover proved to bear a picture of three women; two blondes and one dark-skinned and dark-haired, each clad only in little cloth triangles tied on to cover the socially unacceptable areas.

Miroku sat down again and opened the magazine. Oh, yes... things were definitely looking up.

Two or three pages later, the telephone on the bedside table started ringing. Miroku looked up from the picture he was studying and wondered whether he ought to answer it. Probably not... it might be Penelope, or one of he boys from the locker room. Those weren't people he wanted to try to have a conversation with.

It rang a couple more times, and then stopped.

"Miroku!" Professor Houshi called from downstairs. "Telephone!"

Miroku hesitated. "Who is it?" he asked.

There was a pause. "It's Kagome."

Oh. That was all right, then. Miroku picked up the receiver and lifted it gingerly to his ear. "Hello?" he asked.

"Miroku?" It was Kagome's voice, though slightly distorted by the telephone. "It's me. I just wanted to check if you were all right. Is your father okay? I mean, is he... normal?"

"He seems to be," Miroku shrugged before remembering that Kagome couldn't see him. What an odd way to communicate; you missed so much of a conversation when you couldn't see the other person's face! "He asks a lot of questions, but he hasn't tried to hurt me or anything, if that's what you mean." He turned a page of the magazine and found a picture of one of the blonde women... facing away from him, but with absolutely nothing on her above the waist. Tease.

"Oh, good," said Kagome. Paper rustled. "I should have thought of this earlier, but I'm going to give you my and Sango's phone numbers. Write them down. We need to all keep in touch with each other. Have you got paper and a pen?"

"Pardon?" Miroku hadn't been quite listening – it took him a moment to remember what Kagome had just said. "Paper and a pen. There has to be..." he looked around. "Give me a moment. I don't know where anything is."

After some searching, he found a tin can full of long, thin objects that looked like some kind of writing implement. Miroku pulled one out and tested it on a corner of his magazine; for a moment, nothing happened, but then blue ink began to flow. Good! He picked up the phone again. "Found one," he said.

"Okay," said Kagome. "There are the numbers."

She read them off, and he dutifully copied them down on the blonde woman's back – then, at her insistence, he read them back to her to make sure he had them right.

"Keep those with you. We need to keep in touch," said Kagome.

"I will," promised Miroku. He pulled the page out of the magazine and folded it up to put in his pocket.

"Don't call me tonight," she added. "I'm still at the motel. But tomorrow we all need to meet at school, and then we're going back to the little store where you and Sango were last night, and we'll wait there for Souta. He's going to help us get some weapons."

"Souta? Your brother?"

"Yeah. He knows where things are around here – we don't," Kagome pointed out. "And by the way... Miroku, can you fight at all? Without your void, I mean?"

Miroku turned the page of his magazine, and there was the same blonde, still topless, but in a slightly different pose that allowed just a _bit_ of breast to show. _Very_ impressive... how did she stand _up_ with those? They looked terribly top-heavy...

"Miroku?" asked Kagome.

"Hmm?" He realized he'd better shut the magazine... it was too distracting. "I used to be able to fight with a bo, a little," he said, "but it's been a long time since I practiced." He paused, thinking for a moment. "Kagome... my void is gone and Inuyasha is human... what about you? Will your arrows work the way they normally do?"

"I don't know," she said. "I wouldn't want to count on it."

"Me, either," Miroku admitted. "I've actually been noticing since I got here that I can't see auras anymore." That was somehow far more disturbing than the loss of the void – possibly because unlike the void, it was an ability he'd come to take for granted.

"Auras. I'll have to look," said Kagome. "Is there anything else you need? Any questions? Anything you need help with?"

"I think I'm all right," said Miroke. "Good night, I suppose."

"I'll see you tomorrow," said Kagome.

Miroku waited until the phone began to beep at him, that seeming to be the best sign that the conversation had ended, then set the receiver back in the cradle and opened his magazine again. Maybe if he kept looking, he'd see some more of the blonde woman's breasts.

"So," he said aloud, turning back to the page where he'd left off. "Where were we?"


End file.
